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TUTANKHAMEN 
ARTHUR WEIGALL 








THE AUTHOR, WITH THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNOR OF THE PRO- 
VINCE, STANDING IN FRONT OF THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 


TUTANKHAMEN 


And Other Essays 


BY 


ARTHUR WEIGALL 


FORMER INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF ANTIQUITIES, EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT 
AND MEMBER OF THE CATALOGUE STAFF OF THE CAIRO MUSEUM 


Author of “The Life and Times of Akhnaton,” 
“The Glory of the Pharaohs,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


new BY yvorx 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


aD) 


TUTANKHAMEN AND OTHER ESSAYS 


ase lah  phelles 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


PREFACE 


T is not many months since a volume of my essays 
I and papers on Egyptological matters was pub- 

lished, under the title of “The Glory of the 
Pharaohs”; but the interest aroused in the whole sub- 
ject of Egyptian research by the discovery of the tomb 
of Tutankhamen has created a definite call for another 
volume of the same kind. In the previous collection 
there were, amongst some miscellaneous articles, three 
or four papers which had a close bearing on the excava- 
tions in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings; and I 
there gave some account of the work conducted under 
my supervision in that royal necropolis. In this new 
volume there is again a varied collection of papers deal- 
ing with different aspects of Egyptian research, but the 
first few chapters are directly concerned with the new 
tomb. 

Never before has the public been so widely stirred 
by an archeological discovery as it has been by the 
opening of the sepulchre of Tutankhamen, and on all 
sides one may observe an eager desire to learn something 
about the past ages of man both in Egypt and in other 
countries. The cynic has already been aroused by it to 
scoff at what he terms the pursuit of a new nine-days’ 
wonder; but I am inclined to believe that the finding 
of this ancient Pharaoh’s tomb has revealed an almost 
universal love of ancient things, until now largely sup- 
pressed by the clamour of the concerns of the present 
day, and I think that the world at large is at last about 

v 


vi PREFACE 


to claim that inheritance in the regions of the Past to 
which the archeologist has opened the road. The estate 
of Egyptology has been long enough the exclusive do-! 
main of the scholar. His pioneer work is hardly begun, 
it is true; but from now onwards, I believe, he will have 
to labour under the eyes of an ever-increasing public 
who will follow him into those regions, and will con- 
tinuously demand to know what he has found. 

This is all to the good. Upon the Egyptologist it 
will have a humanising effect which is badly needed; and 
upon the public a knowledge of the Past cannot fail to 
exert a broadening influence. In this life of ours which, 
under modern conditions, is lived at so great a speed, 
there is a growing need for a periodical pause wherein 
the mind may adjust the relationship of the things that 
have been to those that are. So rapidly are our impres- 
sions received and assimilated, so individually are they 
shaped and adapted, that, in whatever direction our 
brains lead us, we are speedily carried away from that 
broad province of thought which is our common heritage. 
But, a man who travels alone finds himself, in a few 
months, out of touch with the thought of his fellows; 
and, similarly, a man who journeys continuously along 
the narrow road of his own modern experience finds him- 
self grown impatient of the larger outlook of the world’s 
continuity, and just as the solitary man must needs come 
into the company of his fellows if he would retain a 
healthy mind, so the man who lives in his own confined 
present must allow himself an occasional visit to the 
realm of the past if he would keep his balance. 

Heraclitus, in a quotation preserved by Sextus Em- 
piricus,* writes: “It behooves us to follow the common 

* Bywater: Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae, p. 38. 


PREFACE vil 


reason of the world; yet, though there is a common rea- 
son in the world, the majority live as though they 
possessed a wisdom peculiar each unto himself alone.” 
Every one of us who considers his mentality an im- 
portant part of his constitution should endeavour to give 
himself ample opportunities of breathing the breath of 
this “common reason,” which comes like a cool breeze 
from the regions of the Past. We should remember the 
yesterdays, that we may know what all the bother of 
to-day is about; and we should foretell to-morrow not 
by to-day but by every day that has been. 

Forgetfulness is so common a human failing. In our 
rapid transit along the individual pathway of our life 
we are so inclined to forget the past stages of the jour- 
ney. All things pass by and are swallowed up in a mo- 
ment of time. Experiences crowd upon us; the events 
of our life occur, are recorded by our busy brains, are 
digested, and are forgotten before the substance of which 
they were made has resolved into its elements. We race 
through the years, and our progress is headlong through 
the days. 

Everything we have used, as it is done with is swept 
up into the basket of the Past, and the busy scavengers, 
unless we check them, toss the contents, good and bad, 
on to the great rubbish heap of the world’s waste. 
Loves, hates, gains, losses, all things upon which we do 
not lay fierce and strong hands, are gathered into 
nothingness, and, with a few exceptions, are utterly 
forgotten. 

And we, too, will soon have passed, and our little 
brains which have forgotten so much will be forgotten. 
We shall be throttled out of the world and pressed by 


vill PREFACE 


the clumsy hands of death into the mould of that same 


rubbish-hill of oblivion, 
. where lie 


Days past like dreams, and waning moons slid by, 
And mixed heaps of lost mortality, 


unless there be a stronger hand to save us. There is 
only one human force stronger than death, and that force 
is History, for by it the dead are made to live again. 

Sometimes, then, in our little race from day to day 
it is necessary to stop the headlong progress of our in- 
dividual experience, and, for an hour, to look back upon 
the broad fields of the Past. “There is,” says Emerson, 
“a relationship between the hours of our life and the 
centuries of time.” Let us give history, and arche- 
ology its due attention; for thus not only shall we be 
rendering a service to all the dead, not only shall we be 
giving a reason and a usefulness to their lives, but we 
shall also bring to our own brains a balance which cannot 
easily otherwise be obtained; we shall adjust our 
thoughts to the big movement of the world; and, above 
all, we shall learn how best to do our duty in this won- 
derful age to which it is our inestimable privilege to be- 
long. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I Tue Future or Excavation In Ecypr . . 


II ‘Tue Vatwey or THE Tomss OF THE KINGS . 
III THe Toms or TuTanKHAMEN 
IV TuTrankHAMEN: THE HistoricaL ProBLemMs 
VY Tue Ancient Guouts or THEBES 


VI Tue Matevotence or Ancient EcyptTian 
Spirits . 


VII Tue Prospiem or Ecyrtian CoronoLocy 


VIII Tue Eastern Ecyrptian Desert anp Its In- 


TERESTS . 
IX Tue Quarrizs or Wapy HamMamMAatT 
LHe RED OMA LIGHEOAD.. yi cialis) s)ics 
XI Tue Imperrat Porpuyry QuarRiEs . 
XII Tue Quarrizs or Mons Craupianus 
XIII =TsHe Tempe or Wapy AsAp 
XIV THe Frioopine or Lower Nusia 
XV THe Ecyrtian Empire 
XVI THe Gateway OF THE East . 
XVII Tue Meanine or CIVILIZATION. . . 
TRUEST POMS A, ech aa daa iis oily at 


PAGE 


15 
38 
71 
99 
119 


136 
158 


171 
191 
211 
237 
256 
275 
296 
311 
335 
348 
363 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Author, with the Egyptian Governor of the Prov- 
ince, Standing in front of the Tomb of Tutankhamen 


Frontispiece 


A General View of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings 
The Mummy of Rameses the Second . 
The Entrance to the Tomb of Tutankhamen 


A Sketch of the Golden Shrine in the Burial Chamber of 
Tutankhamen 


Examples of Ancient Sent Goldwork: The Gold Ear 
Ornaments of Sety the Second . 


The Hall Built by Tutankhamen in the Temple of Luxor 


The Famous Statue of Sekhmet after Being Smashed s 
a Native Who Believed in Its Malevolence . : 


The Avenue of Ram-Headed Sphinxes in Front of the 
Main Entrance of the Temple of Karnak . 


Wady Hammamat Paihia Cont; 
An Abandoned Sarcophagus at at Hammamat . 
The Roman Town of Mons Claudianus 


Mons Claudianus. A Large Granite Column n Lying to 
the North East of the Town : 


The Colossi at Thebes tiie go RE 
The Colossi at Thebes During the Inundation 
Gerf-Husen a oe ee ee ee 
Inscribed Granite Rocks Near the First Cataract 


xi 


PAGE 


40 
48 
64 


80 


96 
112 


144 


160 
192 
192 
264 


264 
304 
304 
320 
320 


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TUTANKHAMEN 


CHAPTER I 


THE FUTURE OF EXCAVATION 
IN EGYPT 


[) == the last two or three years a great and 


astonishing change has taken place in the atti- 
tude and bearing of educated Egyptians. In 
1882 the nation was bankrupt, and the native govern- 
ment had, by frenzied taxation, reduced the country to 
such complete chaos, that European intervention was 
necessary ; and this had led to an anti-foreign movement 
which had to be suppressed by force. The British Occu- 
pation resulted; and from that time until the outbreak 
of the great war, Egypt remained under British super- 
vision and guidance, having little more than a nominal 
control over its own affairs. The British Government, 
however, had always said that this Occupation was only 
a temporary measure, which would be terminated as 
soon as the Egyptians showed clear signs of being able 
to govern themselves; and now the time is fast approach- 
ing when we shall honour that promise, and shall leave 
this interesting people more or less to its own devices. 
Already the first steps in evacuation have been taken, 
and great numbers of British officials have retired from 
service under the Egyptian Government. At the same 


time, native officials have been given much wider con- 
15 


16 TUTANKHAMEN 


trol; and now it may be said that British management — 
of the country’s affairs has been reduced to a condition 
almost as nominal as was native management twenty 
or thirty years ago. This has led to the change to which 
I have referred. No longer do the upper-class Egyp- 
tians remain in the background like good children who 
should “be seen but not heard”; no longer do they go 
about their unobtrusive business, leaving the activities 
and labours of government in the hands of their pur- 
poseful, high-minded, and energetic British guardians. 
No longer is Egypt a sort of exhibition to which crowds 
of European and American sight-seers flock, so that 
they may enjoy themselves, and smile at the quaint na- 
tives, under the kindly eye of the British policemen. 

To-day, thanks to England, Egypt is an independent 
nation, and Egyptians are becoming increasingly con- 
scious of the fact that the land is theirs, and that foreign 
visitors are their guests, any privileges which the latter 
enjoy being given to them by their native hosts, and 
these hosts asking in return a degree of consideration 
and politeness which in earlier years they had neither 
the power nor the wish to exact. There is a new attitude 
of self-assertion to be observed, which, while it may 
somewhat startle a few of the old-fashioned British 
officials, is received by the majority with gladness, as 
being a sign of the recovery of this most engaging people 
from its long sickness. 

But amongst those who have not yet adjusted their 
minds to the new order, many of the European and 
American excavators and Egyptologists are, unfor- 
tunately, to be classed; and in this chapter I want to 
warn them that unless they speedily correct their atti- 
tude, and recognise the great obligation which they owe 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 17 


to their hosts, they may cause the stopping of all foreign 
excavation in Egypt. It is a subject which should be 
of interest to the general public at this time, when the 
whole world has been stirred by the discovery of the 
tomb of Tutankhamen; and I do not hesitate, therefore, 
to discuss it in a book of this kind. For several years I 
served the Egyptian Government in the capacity of 
Inspector-General of Antiquities; and it was then my 
duty both to assist these excavators in their work, and, 
at the same time, to maintain what may be called the 
proprietorship of the Egyptian nation in the sites con- 
ceded to foreign archeologists. I thus became accus- 
tomed to view the matter from the two standpoints; and 
now that the balance of authority is swinging over, so 
that soon the Egyptian and not the foreign attitude 
towards excavation will first have to be reckoned with, 
I feel able to give my warning with knowledge and ex- 
perience. 

For many years now excavating concessions in 
Egypt have been granted to foreigners on very generous 
terms by the Egyptian Government. Each application 
for such a concession came before the Archeological 
Committee, which consisted of the Director-General of 
the Department of Antiquities, various native and Eng- 
lish high officials, and a few interested antiquarians of 
different nationalities; and if the credentials of the ap- 
plicant were satisfactory, the concession was granted on 
the understanding that proper scientific records would 
be made and published, that the Department of An- 
tiquities had the right to intervene and stop or re- 
arrange the work at any time, that everything found 
belonged to the Egyptian nation, but that half the an- 
tiquities would be given to the excavator whenever such 


18 TUTANKHAMEN 


a gift was consistent with the interests of the national 
museum in Cairo. 

In theory this meant that the unique pieces were to 
be retained in Egypt, but in practice it came to be under- 
stood that if several objects of first-rate importance 
were found they would be divided equally between the 
excavator and the Cairo Museum. In certain cases, 
owing to the kindness or the weakness of the authorities, 
the excavator got the best of the bargain, the two most 
important instances of this being the removal to the 
United States of the statues of the Pharaoh Mykerinos 
and his queen, and the retention by German excavators 
of the marvellous works of art discovered by them at 
Tell-el-Amarna. 

Every now and then the archeological world was 
disturbed by some instance of an excavator having taken 
advantage of these generous terms to enrich himself; but 
on the whole the granting of concessions under this ar- 
rangement led only to the enrichment of the world’s 
museums, and to the advancement of knowledge. Con- 
stant care had to be exercised, however, to prevent con- 
cessions being granted to the wrong kind of excavators, 
that is to say, to men who wished to make money out of 
their “finds”; for it is the first principle of scientific 
work that the sites which are unproductive of portable 
objects and which are therefore but a waste of time to 
the loot-hunter, must be excavated with as much care as 
those which yield plenty of antiquities, and that as much 
attention must be given to the recording of the position 
and measurements of bare walls and other dull material 
as to that of rich deposits of objects, the increase of 
archeological information of all kinds being the true 
aim rather than the acquisition of museum specimens. 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 19 


The Egyptian Government, whenever it had the 
money to spare, also conducted excavations; and there 
were certain sites which it reserved for itself. Amongst 
these was the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at 
Thebes; and here, in the last years of the nineteenth 
century, important excavations were conducted by the 
then Director-General of Antiquities, which led to the 
discovery of the tombs of the Pharaohs Thutmose [, 
Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, and others. 

Shortly after these discoveries were made there came 
up the Nile a certain elderly American gentleman, Mr. 
Theodore Davis, who was so attracted by the beautiful 
climate of Upper Egypt, that he bought a house-boat, 
or dahabiyeh, and decided to spend each winter in the 
neighbourhood of Thebes. In 1902 he generously offered 
to give a sum of money to Mr. Howard Carter, then 
Inspector-General of Antiquities, in order to enable him 
to conduct further excavations in the royal valley, the 
funds of the Department being at the time somewhat 
low and work being suspended. The offer was accepted 
by the authorities on the understanding that Mr. Davis 
was simply identifying himself with the Cairo Museum, 
and was not regarding himself as having any conces- 
sionary rights; and in 1903 the tomb of Thutmose IV 
was discovered during the work carried out with his 
money. In the same year the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut 
was dug out by Mr. Carter, on behalf of the Govern- 
ment, again at Mr. Davis’s expense; and thus this keenly 
interested American gentleman came to be regarded, so 
to speak, as the banker behind the Cairo Museum ex- 
cavations in this Government reserve. 

In 1904 Mr. J. E. Quibell took Mr. Carter’s place 
at Luxor, and continued the work on the same terms; 


20 TUTANKHAMEN 


and in 1905 I was appointed Inspector-General, and for 
some weeks Mr. Quibell and I were working together at 
Thebes. During this time the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau, 
the father and mother of Queen Tiy, was discovered; 
and at the close of the work Mr. Quibell left Thebes. I 
did not feel able, however, both to conduct these excava- 
tions and to administer the inspectorate; and I therefore 
insisted that if the work were to continue, Mr. Davis 
and the Department must employ an archeologist to 
direct it under my supervision. 

This was done, Mr. E. R. Ayrton being appointed; 
and in the following years the tombs of Queen Tiy and 
Akhnaton, Horemheb, Septah, and others, were dis- 
covered, Mr. Davis financing the Government, and the 
work being conducted under my inspection on behalf 
of the Cairo Museum, to which all the antiquities were 
taken, with the exception of a few objects given to Mr. 
Davis as souvenirs. As soon as a tomb was found I 
took charge of the work, and the expenses of packing 
the objects, etc., were defrayed by the Government, Mr. 
Davis only paying for the actual excavation. 

The position was not altogether an easy one for me; 
for, naturally, Mr. Davis year by year identified himself 
more closely with the work, and was inclined at length, 
very understandably, to resent government supervision. 
On the other hand, it was my business to maintain the 
authority of the Department I served, and to uphold 
the proprietorship of the Egyptian nation in this royal 
necropolis, against an increasing tendency on the part of 
visitors to regard the Valley as Mr. Davis’s own prop- 
erty, and the objects he found as his gift to the Cairo 
Museum. However, thanks to his good nature, the 
serenity of our work was ruffled by but few breezes, and 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 21 


I was able to uphold the two main principles for which 
I stood, namely, that the Egyptian Government ought 
to be master in its own house, and that excavation by 
amateurs was only permissible when trained archzolo- 
gists were in charge. It must clearly be understood that 
Mr. Davis never was, and never regarded himself as, a 
benefactor of mankind or anything of that sort. He 
generously contributed a certain sum of money each year 
to these excavations—a sum which the Egyptian Gov- 
ernment might easily itself have paid; and in return he 
had the great pleasure and the many thrills of treasure- 
hunting under the most ideal conditions. From the 
European or American point of view he was to be 
thanked for his fine patronage of Kgyptology, and from 
the Egyptian standpoint he was under a debt to the 
native government for permitting him to excavate in 
this royal necropolis. 

Mr. Davis was by no means the only wealthy 
amateur who was attracted by this most enjoyable 
method of spending the winter. ‘Thebes is a popular 
winter resort, where visitors live an extremely com- 
fortable existence in magnificent hotels or luxurious 
dahabiyehs or steamers; and in this perfect climate noth- 
ing can pass the time so pleasantly as a little leisurely 
excavation, provided that the actual work is done by 
others. One employs an archeologist to make the 
records, and a handful of natives to do the digging; and 
the whole thing costs but a few hundred pounds, in re- 
turn for which one has a goal for the daily ride or walk, 
a pleasant picnic luncheon each day, and the continuous 
expectation of a romantic haul of treasures. 

Lord Northampton excavated thus in another part 
of the Theban necropolis; Lady William Cecil spent a 


22 TUTANKHAMEN 


happy winter in this manner amongst the tombs at 
Aswan; Mr. Robb Tytus, a rich young American, dug 
out part of the palace of Amenhotep III, at Thebes; 
two ladies, Miss Benson and Miss Gourlay, excavated. 
part of the temple of Mut at Karnak; and so forth. 
In each case an archeologist was employed to do the 
actual work, and there was no objection to be raised on 
scientific grounds. 

In this manner Lord Carnarvon also began his career 
as an excavator, being attracted to Thebes by the 
climate, and desiring an easy occupation to pass the 
time, but in his case he commenced operations without 
the aid of any trained archeologist other than myself, 
and as I was generally very busy, the hard work had to 
be undertaken by himself. In the second season, how- 
ever, and thence onwards, he employed Mr. Carter, who 
had retired from Government service, to look after the 
work for him; and admirable excavations were carried 
out in various parts of the Theban necropolis. ‘The sites 
chosen were not government reserves, and therefore he 
was allowed to take half the antiquities found, whereas 
Mr. Davis, working in the Valley, could take nothing. 
The objects thus acquired were supplemented by shrewd 
and tasteful purchases, and soon the “Carnarvon collec- 
tion” came to be one of the most important in England. 
I do not know how many thousands of pounds Lord 
Carnarvon spent on the excavations or in the shops, but 
it may safely be said that the antiquities which were thus 
obtained had a market value greatly in excess of the 
sum laid out. I do not think, however, that he regarded 
the matter from a financial point of view, for he had 
gradually become very much interested in Egyptology, 
and thoroughly enjoyed the work; but the oft-repeated 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 23 


statement—never, I think, made by himself—that his 
self-sacrificing expenditure in the cause of science had 
left him very greatly out of pocket is quite incorrect. 
He always knew that his collection would one day be 
sold, and thus while he was spending money on this 
fascinating and useful hobby he was able to feel, if he 
thought about it at all, that it was actually a very profit- 
able investment.* The point I wish to make is that in 
his case, native opinion was justified in thinking that 
his thanks were due to the Egyptian Government for 
a great privilege conferred, just as foreign opinion was 
justified in regarding his work as of great benefit to 
Egypt. If we in England were to allow an Egyptian 
to dig up our kings in Westminster Abbey the ex- 
cavator would obviously be under as great an obligation 
to us as we were to him. 

In 1912 I left Upper Egypt, and shortly afterwards 
Mr. Davis died at a ripe old age. Then came the war, 
and excavation was suspended. ‘Two or three years later 
Mr. Carter persuaded Lord Carnarvon to ask the 
Egyptian Government to let him take up Mr. Davis’s 
work in the Valley of the Kings; but this being a gov- 
ernment reserve the excavating-contract stipulated, I 
understand, that everything found in any untouched 
tomb which might be discovered should go to the Cairo 
Museum, but that any antiquities found loose in the 
rubbish or in disturbed deposits should be subject to 
the usual half-and-half division. Like Mr. Davis, there- 
fore, Lord Carnarvon thus became a privileged worker 
for the Cairo Museum, directly under the formal super- 
vision of the Government in the person of Mr. R. Engel- 


* In his Will, made upon his deathbed, Lord Carnarvon generously sug- 
gested that his widow might offer the collection to the British Museum for 
£20,000, a figure, as he stated, far below its value. 


24 TUTANKHAMEN 


bach, who had taken my place as Inspector-General of 
Antiquities; but he had this advantage over Mr. Davis, 
that he had always a chance of obtaining for himself a 
share of some of the “finds,” to add to his collection. 

The work, however, though not very expensive, 
proved to be unproductive of antiquities. In my time, 
we had cleared a large part of the Valley, and we knew 
that the tomb of Tutankhamen, and perhaps those of 
one or two minor personages, alone remained to be 
found. Lord Carnarvon at length desired to abandon 
the site, but Mr. Carter persuaded him to hold on until 
it could be said that the Valley had been completely ex- 
amined. ‘Then, suddenly, came the great discovery. 
Lord Carnarvon, who, at the time, was in England, im- 
mediately went out to Egypt, and, having seen the amaz- 
ing contents of the first chamber of the new tomb, re- 
turned to England to make arrangements to meet the 
situation. 

Meanwhile, the director of some neighbouring ex- 
cavations which were being conducted by the Metro- 
politan Museum of New York, seeing that Mr. Carter 
was wholly unprepared to handle so great a quantity 
of antiquities, very generously placed his staff at Lord 
Carnarvon’s disposal; and thus the long and difficult 
work of preserving and removing the objects was begun. 

Public interest in the discovery was widespread, and 
in England Lord Carnarvon, somewhat bewildered, 
found himself a famous man. Moreover, to his surprise, 
he was told that there was a fortune in his discovery. 
There were the photographic rights to be disposed of 
to some enterprising journal; there were the kinemato- 
graph rights to be negotiated for; there were the usual 
rights in his anticipated book on the subject; and, above 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 25 


all, there were the newspaper rights in his daily service 
of news as the work developed. The money expended 
during the past years of unproductive work in the Val- 
ley would thus be repaid with interest; and though the 
antiquities themselves belonged to the Cairo Museum, 
he had the satisfaction of finding—by chance and not 
by design—that his happy days at Thebes in the in- 
dulging of his delightful hobby seemed likely to turn 
out to be most profitably spent. 

Then came his natural and understandable, but, to 
my mind, unfortunate mistake. In the excitement of 
the moment, and in the flurry caused by a descent of 
eager journalists upon him, he sold to the London 
Times the absolutely exclusive rights to all information 
in regard to his discovery; and that newspaper an- 
nounced in its columns that “neither Lord Carnarvon 
nor any member of his party will supply news, articles, 
or photographs to any other individual, newspaper, or 
agency,” and it was further stated that this promise to 
give no information to anybody whatsoever, other than 
the Times journalists, was to hold good until “the com- 
pletion of the excavation of all the chambers of the 
tomb.” Immediately, of course, a storm of protest from 
the Egyptians themselves broke about his devoted head. 
No one, of course, blamed the Times, which was quite 
within its rights. But Lord Carnarvon was reminded 
that the tomb was in no sense his property, since it 
belonged to the Egyptian nation; and it was pointed 
out to him that in thus accepting money for his exclu- 
sive news in regard to discoveries which he had made 
only by courtesy and under the nominal supervision 
of the Egyptian Government, he had committed a 
grave breach of etiquette. “It is an unheard-of thing,” 


26 TUTANKHAMEN 


said the native Minister of Public Works, “that we 
Egyptians should have to go to a London newspaper 
for all information regarding a tomb of one of our own 
Kings.” 

Thus, when he returned to Egypt he found himself 
harassed and perplexed by a most awkward situation; 
but in loyalty to his agreement with the Times he faced 
the storm with as much indifference as he could com- 
mand, and went about his business encouraged by a little 
group of rather thoughtless friends, who had been ac- 
customed for years to regard the Egyptians as quietly 
acquiescing in the right of the excavator to do as he 
chose, in the cause of science. 

The position of the Egyptian Department of An- 
tiquities was most difficult. They had a perfect right at 
this point to take charge of the proceedings, but Mr. 
Carter and his staff were doing the work admirably, and 
it would have been very unkind to dismiss them. On 
the other hand, Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter, with 
the help of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, 
knew well enough that the work was in the best possible 
hands, and very naturally they showed some objection to 
the inspections made by Mr. Engelbach, the Inspector- 
General of Antiquities, just as Mr. Davis had resented 
my own official supervision of his work. The situation 
was most uncomfortable for Mr. Engelbach, but with 
great tact he did his best to uphold Egyptian rights and 
to do his duty to the nation which employed him, with- 
out in the process diminishing the authority of the 
excavators, whose point of view he could so well under- 
stand. 

The chief troubles caused by Lord Carnarvon’s ac- 
tion may be classed in five groups. Firstly, the arrange- 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 27 


ment with the Times called Egyptian public attention 
to the whole question of the rights and status of the 
foreign excavator in Egypt. Is the excavator, it was 
asked, a sort of owner of the area of his work, and are 
his discoveries his own secret, to be hidden from the 
Egyptians and the world until he choose to disclose it? 
Or is he Egypt’s guest, and under a great obligation to 
that country for allowing him to excavate? At the time 
of Lord Carnarvon’s discovery the Director-General of 
Antiquities was endeavouring, as he still is, to introduce 
a law which shall prohibit foreign excavators from taking 
any of their “finds” out of the country. According to 
this proposed law all antiquities discovered will have to 
go the Cairo Museum; and this will put a stop to those 
excavations which are financed by European or Ameri- 
can museums rather for the purpose of obtaining an- 
tiquities to fill their show-cases, than for the unrewarded 
gathering of archzological information. And this law 
being under consideration, it was felt to be most un- 
fortunate that Lord Carnarvon should, by his quite 
innocent action have asserted a sort of proprietorship of 
the tomb he had discovered, thereby causing many 
Egyptians to wish to send him about his business. 
Secondly, various London newspapers refused to 
take the service of news offered for sale by the Times; 
and they therefore sent their correspondents to Thebes 
to obtain what news they could in the teeth of all op- 
position. Thus a journalistic battle was at once en- 
tered into; and important native journals, such as Al- 
Ahram, joined the fray with zest, demanding to know 
what right an excavator had to sell exclusive informa- 
tion in regard to Egypt’s own sacred dead, and, indeed, 


28 TUTANKHAMEN 


what right he had to excavate at all, especially in a gov- 
ernment reserve. 

Thirdly, the contract with the Times imposed a bond 
of silence upon the hard-working and most high-prin- 
cipled excavators, obliging them to act in a rather ludi- 
crous manner which to their friends and colleagues 
seemed reminiscent of the simplicity of childhood, and to 
the Egyptians appeared indicative of the knavery of bad 
men. ‘They had to slink about with shut mouths, in 
a manner of brigands; and they gave the impression 
throughout native Egypt that they were trying to ob- 
tain some of the objects for sale abroad. Wild stories 
were circulated as to the removal by aeroplane of 
millions of pounds’ worth of gold; and the ladies of the 
party were said to have left the tomb with wonderful 
jewels hidden under their skirts. 

The tomb was discovered at a time when the political 
situation was so delicate that the utmost tact was re- 
quired to avoid trouble with the Egyptians. Yet, at the 
opening of the first chamber no representation of the 
Egyptian Department of Antiquities had been present; 
and native gossip said that not only had Lord Carnarvon 
deliberately slighted and insulted the Egyptian nation, 
but that he had purposely so arranged matters in order 
to obtain possession of the treasures. The fact that he 
was an honourable man, incapable of such actions, had 
no weight with the unreasoning gossips. 

Fourthly, the contract with the Times obliged the 
excavators sometimes to attempt to refuse free access to 
the tomb to Egyptologists who had some connection 
with a newspaper, as all Egyptologists must have from 
time to time in the interests of that publicity which is 
needed to obtain support for scientific work. ‘Thus the 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 29 


excavators cut themselves off from possible advice and 
help, and unconsciously established a precedent of a 
rather startling nature. The Egyptologists and others 
thus shut out at once applied direct to the Egyptian 
Government for permission to enter the tomb, which 
was readily granted; and in this manner a definite trial 
of strength between the Government and the excavators 
took place, which is bound to re-act upon the future 
relations of the two. 

Fifthly, the accidental turning of the discovery to 
such lucrative account was likely to encourage all kinds 
of commercial enterprises, and to let loose on Egypt 
a horde of undesirable diggers anxious simply to obtain 
loot or to make a discovery which could be exploited by 
anewspaper. Egyptians themselves, untrained in scien- 
tific methods, would demand excavating concessions, and 
they could only be checked by the passage of the pro- 
posed law mentioned above. 

These five points will make it sufficiently clear, I 
think, that on the grounds of archzological principle as 
well as on those of expediency there should have been 
no course open to an earnest Egyptologist other than 
that of resisting the innovation. Yet, as a matter of 
fact, most Egyptologists sided with the hard-working 
and most competent excavators, who themselves may 
be credited with the best of intentions. I may mention 
that in the sequel the monopoly of the news was quite 
unable to be maintained, and when the inner chamber 
of the tomb was opened the main facts were announced 
to the world through all the important newspapers 
simultaneously. That, however, is not my present point: 
I wish only to show that the attitude of an excavator 
in laying claim to this sort of proprietorship of the area 


30 TUTANKHAMEN 


he has been allowed to excavate can only lead to situ- 
ations dangerous to the interests of Egyptology at this 
present time when native opinion has to be considered 
so carefully. 

I believe that unless foreign excavators in Egypt 
adjust themselves speedily to the new conditions in that 
country, they will cease to be given digging-concessions. 
Egypt, as I have said, is now fast assuming charge of 
its own affairs, and we English are retiring from its 
councils. A new interest in their history and archeology 
is developing amongst better-class Egyptians; and not 
long will they permit foreign Egyptologists to work as 
they have worked before, with greater regard for their 
own museums and their own public than for the interests 
of Egypt itself. 

I will give an instance of what I mean. In the old 
days the excavator conducted his season’s work in pri- 
vacy, regarding visitors as intruders who interrupted 
him. I have heard Lord Carnarvon and the excavators 
of the Metropolitan Museum of New York declare, un- 
derstandably enough, that it was intolerable that their 
work should be held up by the arrival of some party 
wishing to be shown over the excavations; and though 
the ever-increasing interest in the great discovery obliged 
them at length to allow several Egyptian notables to 
visit the work, they much objected, sometimes, to this 
necessity. Excavators must try to remember, however, 
that they are the guests of the Egyptian nation; and in 
future they must so adjust their plans that from time 
to time native visitors may be taken over the works. 
They must show a real desire to educate these people in 
their history, and they must regard it as one of the duties 
imposed upon them by the terms of their concession, and 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 31 


not as a waste of time. In the case of the tomb of 
Tutankhamen a number of native pressmen, at the 
special invitation of the Egyptian Government, came 
all the way from Cairo to Luxor to see the sepulchre, 
but the excavators, not having been properly notified 
of the visit, at first wished to refuse them admission, and 
finally allowed them to see the first chamber from be- 
hind a barrier across the entrance passage, yet did not 
permit them to look at the antiquities which had already 
been removed to a neighbouring workshop. This sort of 
clash on a point of etiquette ought never to have taken 
place. 

There should be no secrecy on the part of excavators 
in regard to their “‘finds,” nor any thought that informa- 
tion concerning any particular discovery belongs to them 
alone and not to the public. When the Germans dis- 
covered the now famous head of Queen Nefertiti at Tell- 
el-Amarna in 1918, and, for some unaccountable reason, 
were allowed to take it to Berlin, they kept the matter 
as dark as night; and it is only now, ten years later, that 
photographs of it are beginning to circulate. Less than 
a year ago an English Egyptologist showed me these 
pictures in profound secrecy, telling me that on no ac- 
count must they be made public, lest a breach of eti- 
quette be committed. 

Breach of fiddlesticks! All information regarding 
“finds” made in excavations in Egypt should, if only for 
the sake of politeness, be at the disposal of the Egyptian 
nation as rapidly as possible, and thence should be 
passed on to the world at large. ‘This was done, for ex- 
ample, by Professor Petrie’s party, who, having made a 
discovery of importance during the same season which 
saw the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen, an- 


32 TUTANKHAMEN 


nounced it in a free bulletin to the Press at large. The 
only serious question of etiquette which arises is that 
in regard to Egypt: in what manner can the excavator 
best show his appreciation of the privilege conferred on 
him by the Egyptian Government in allowing him to 
excavate at all? 

It is to be argued that Lord Carnarvon’s discovery 
put Egypt under a great obligation to him; and, though 
we consider this true, thoughtful Egyptians have ex- 
pressed an opposite view. The tomb, they say, was so 
safely buried beneath tons of rock that it was in no 
danger, and its treasures might well have been left to 
the better handling of a future generation. As it is, a 
mass of material has been discovered at a time when 
there is no proper place to house it, and when our know!- 
edge of how to preserve it is very limited. “Is the world 
fit to assume responsibility for all these treasures of the 
past?’—asks Professor Petrie—‘‘to ensure that fanati- 
cism, violence, or greed will not extinguish them?—to 
guarantee them for some more thousands of years of 
existence? Or is all this exposure the last stage?” 
Have these wonderful objects survived the siege of 
nearly thirty-three centuries, only to be shown to us of 
this one generation and then to fall to pieces because 
conditions are not ready for their preservation ? 

This line of thought is not fanciful, and it must be 
considered seriously. When Mr. Davis found the tomb 
of Queen Tiy and Akhnaton we came upon a funeral- 
shrine made of wood, covered with plaster on which 
figures were modelled. The shrine had been taken to 
pieces in ancient times and these modelled surfaces were 
lying against the walls at various angles. We were able 
to photograph them and to copy the inscriptions; but 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 33 


a few hours after the introduction of the outside air the 
plaster-work had cracked and crumbled and fallen off 
the wood beneath. If objects in such a condition had 
been found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, they, too, 
would have perished before means of preserving them 
could have been procured. 

It may perhaps be said with truth that we are not yet 
ready to conduct excavations of this kind; and I do not 
suppose that Mr. Lucas, the extremely able chemist who 
was employed by Lord Carnarvon, will deny that, with 
all his skill, the work might have been done better by a 
future generation. And as to the housing of these ob- 
jects, all those who know the Cairo Museum, built, as 
it is, beside the Nile in a climate having a humidity which 
rises to 80 per cent, with an annual mean of about 70 
per cent, will admit that that building is entirely unfit 
to receive them; whereas, in another thirty or forty years 
there may be a safe museum and some proper show- 
cases ready to preserve them. 

The staff at Cairo is too small and too hard-worked 
to deal with the rapidly increasing mass of antiquities, 
and ruinous confusion grows ever more confused. The 
building, though fairly new, is dilapidated, and part of 
the roof fell in a short time ago, destroying many fine 
objects. If antiquities removed from a tomb where they 
were perfectly safe are thrown pell-mell into an under- 
staffed museum in a damp climate and left there to rot, 
excavation becomes utterly immoral; and in fact the act 
of excavation should involve both the immediate safe- 
guarding of the objects found and complete arrange- 
ments for their perpetual preservation. Lord Carnar- 
von’s excavations have suddenly sprung this mass of 
glorious relics of the past upon an unprepared present, 


34 TUTANKHAMEN 


and the grave question of how to hand them on intact 
to the future is one which, perhaps, has not been prop- 
erly considered. 

The search for, and the finding of, a royal tomb, 
however, is “a gorgeous experience,” to employ a phrase 
used by Professor Petrie in congratulating the discov- 
erers of this particular sepulchre; and we may well 
understand their desire to dig in the Valley of the Kings. 
But let us face the truth and realise that Lord Carnar- 
von’s splendid find, while it has given such a great “lift” 
to Egyptology, is thought by many persons to be a 
doubtful benefit to posterity. When the discovery had 
been made, Mr. Carter and the staff lent to him by New 
York did the best that this generation can do to meet 
their obligations and to shoulder their responsibilities ; 
but the risks were great, and one cannot say whether 
there is any hope of a long lease of life for the objects 
which have been brought to light, or whether future 
generations will be able to thank the excavators for 
opening this tomb. 

So much for this the greatest archxological find of 
modern times; and I do not at all willingly criticise one 
whose curious, interesting, and charming personality so 
tragically passed from this world at a time when his 
name was on millions of lips. But the case is typical, 
and shows so clearly the point of view of the foreign 
excavator as opposed to that of the native. The ex- 
cavation of sites which are in danger from some cause 
is another matter, and in such cases the Egyptians 
should be grateful; though it may be said that, under 
existing conditions, the benefit is generally mutual as 
between the foreign excavator and the Egyptian Gov- 
ernment. The latter is relieved of expense, and the 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 35 


former usually gains in objects the value of what he has 
spent upon the work. Be this as it may, however, the 
Egyptians are of opinion that thanks are due to them 
for allowing foreigners to dig; and my object in this 
chapter is to warn excavators and those interested in 
their work that they must accept that point of view, 
right or wrong. They must endeavour to be more sim- 
ple, more obliging, more gracious, more considerate of 
Egyptian feeling. In vulgar language, they must get 
off their high horse. 

In protesting against the proposed law which is de- 
signed to prevent antiquities leaving Egypt, and which 
is to be similar to the law now existing in Italy and 
Greece, they must not arrogantly demand their rights: 
they have none. Rather, they should marshal the argu- 
ments on both sides, and draw their correct conclusions 
in a diplomatic manner. ‘The two sides of the case may 
be stated as follows: 

On the Egyptian side it may be said that Egypt is 
the natural home for Egyptian antiquities, and that 
the modern Egyptians are the rightful stewards of the 
relics of their ancestors. On the excavators’ side the 
reply may be made that antiquities are the property of 
all mankind, not of one nation, and that Kuropeans and 
Americans are at present far more able to appreciate 
these relics of early man than are the Egyptians. 

Those in favour of retaining all Egyptian antiquities 
in Egypt can argue that the Cairo Museum will always 
have a certain number of European scholars in its em- 
ploy, and these, with the natives now being trained, will 
be able to take care of the collection; whereas objects 
which leave the country often pass into unskilled hands. 
In reply it may be said that, as a whole, the excavators 


36 TUTANKHAMEN 


of foreign museums are more skilled than those likely 
to be employed at Cairo, and that the services of larger 
numbers of trained men can be engaged than can be 
afforded by the Cairo Museum, which now, at any rate, 
is so badly understaffed. 

Again, the Cairo Museum, it is to be said on the one 
hand, can easily be converted into a satisfactory store- 
house, and proper air-tight show-cases can be obtained. 
Moreover, the climate is more fitted for the preservation 
of the fragile objects than is that of certain Kuropean 
or American cities. On the other hand, it is to be said 
that at present the Cairo Museum is a wretchedly unsafe 
building, and that there is no guarantee that it will be 
improved. Cairo, too, has a humid atmosphere, as I 
have said above, no better in this respect than that of 
many foreign capitals. 

On the Egyptian side it is to be argued that if 
Egyptian antiquities continue to be distributed over the 
world, Egyptologists will have to spend their time in 
wandering over the face of the earth when they wish to 
study the objects themselves; whereas if the objects are 
massed in one place their labours wilk be greatly 
lessened. On the side of the excavators, the answer is 
that Egypt is very far away from the world’s chief seats 
of learning, and that widely-spread collections mean 
widely-spread interest. 

Cairo, it will be said, is as safe a capital as any other; 
for the Egyptians will always be under the eye of 
the great Powers. European capitals, and perhaps 
American, are open to riots and disturbances more grave 
than any to be expected in Egypt. The reply is that, 
in the troubled state of the world, it is bad policy to 
place all our eggs in one basket. The wider the dis- 


FUTURE OF EXCAVATION IN EGYPT 37 


tribution of the collections the less will be the fear of a 
great disaster to them. 

Those in favour of the new law can argue that ex- 
cavations by foreigners will still be permitted and that 
the results in increased knowledge will be sufficient re- 
ward for the workers. The excavators can reply with 
the unfortunate truth that foreign excavations will very 
largely cease for want of subscriptions, if there is to be 
no return in actual objects. 

Such is a bare outline of the arguments on either 
side; and the point I wish to make is that the foreign 
excavators have no cause for complaint. They have 
freely filled their museums during the past years with 
antiquities obtained from Egypt, and their attitude now 
must be one not of outraged dignity but of gratitude for 
past favours and hope for continued indulgence. If 
they will show a real interest in the archeological edu- 
cation of the Egyptian people, and will always recognise 
the right of the Egyptian Government to maintain its 
nominal proprietorship, they will go far to ease a situ- 
ation which is very unpromising for the future of ex- 
cavation in Egypt. 


CHAPTER II 


THE VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF 
THE KINGS 


V QYHE famous Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, 
or Biban-el-Malitk as the natives call it, in which 
the tomb of Tutankhamen has recently been 

found, was first used as a burial-place for the Pharaohs 

of Egypt during the sixteenth century B.c. Previous 
to this the kings were buried in various parts of the 
country, according to the position of their capital; and 
sometimes a Pharaoh had two tombs prepared for him, 
though it is not known whether, in such cases, it was in- 
tended that the body should lie for a time in each of the 
sepulchres, or whether one of the two was simply a sort 
of extra residence for the royal Ka, or spirit. At any 
rate, we must understand that an ancient Egyptian 

burial was not, as with us, a means of disposing of a 

dead body, but was a method of preserving it and pro- 

viding a comfortable home for it and the spirit which 
still dwelt in it. 

The kings of the earliest dynasties (B.c. 3600 to 
3100) were buried in large brick tombs in the western 
desert behind the city of Abydos in Upper Egypt. 
Mena, the first Pharaoh of a united Egypt (8.c. 3520) 
seems to have had two tombs, one at Abydos and one at 
Nakadeh. King Zeser (3.c. 3100) built for himself the 
great Step-Pyramid at Sakkara, near Memphis, his 


capital; but he seems also to have had a sepulchre at Bét 
38 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 39 


Khallaf, near Abydos. Sneferu, who reigned shortly 
after this, was buried in a pyramid-like tomb at Meidim, 
some miles above Memphis; but he also appears to have 
erected another pyramid-tomb for himself at Dahshir, 
near Sakkara. 

Then came Khufu (Cheops) (B.c. 3020-2997) who 
built the Great Pyramid at Gizeh as his sepulchre. His 
successor, Dedefra, made his tomb at Abu Roash, a few 
miles to the north of this; but the next king, Khafra 
(Khephren) (3B.c. 2989-2923) returned to Gizeh and 
erected the Second Pyramid there, his successor, Men- 
kaura (Mykerinos), building the Third Pyramid, close 
to it. The Pharaohs Sahura, Neferarkara, and Nuserra 
of the Fifth Dynasty (B.c. 2863-2811) were buried in 
pyramids at Abusir, between Gizeh and Sakkara; but 
King Unas (8.c. 2775-2745) was buried at Sakkara, as 
were also the kings of the succeeding dynasty, down to 
B.c. 2595. 

Then followed the first of Egypt’s two “dark ages,” 
and when the light returns, in B.c. 2280, we find the 
reigning house—the Eleventh Dynasty—living at 
Thebes, and burying its kings in the western desert op- 
posite that city, an area which was to become the famous 
Theban Necropolis. 'The Pharaoh Nebhapetra Menthu- 
hotep of this dynasty caused himself to be buried at 
Dér el-Bahri, in a pyramid surrounded by temple-like 
buildings, at the foot of the great cliffs which faced the 
city of Thebes; and not far away he caused a rock-cut 
tomb to be made for him as a second sepulchre. Other 
Pharaohs of this period erected brick pyramids for 
themselves in another part of this necropolis. 

King Amenemhet II (3.c. 2058-2023) of the Twelfth 
Dynasty was buried in a pyramid at Dahshir, near Sak- 


40 TUTANKHAMEN 


kara; and his successor, Senusert II, chose to build his 
pyramid at Ilahiin, at the entrance of the Fayim. The 
great Senusert III (B.c, 2007-1969) had two tombs, the 
one a pyramid at Dahshir, and the other a rock-cut 
sepulchre, discovered by Professor Petrie and myself in 
the desert behind Abydos, not far from the tombs of the 
earliest kings. The site chosen for this latter tomb was 
a stretch of open desert near the foot of the western hills. 
A pit was excavated in the sand, and when bed-rock 
was reached a tunnel was made sloping down for some 
650 feet into the rock. The sides of the internal cham- 
bers were cased with quartzite, sandstone, granite, and 
limestone; and there was a magnificent sarcophagus of 
red granite. It was the first of the great tunnel-tombs 
of the Pharaohs, and served as the prototype for the 
royal sepulchres of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Amenem- 
het III (3.c. 1969-1921) also had two burial-places, both 
pyramids, one at Dahshir, and the other at Hawara, 
near Illahtin. The second “dark age” followed, and 
when the story of the Pharaohs is able to be resumed 
the city of Thebes is once more the capital and the 
Pharaoh Ahmose I (B.c. 1580-1557) the founder of the 
EKighteenth Dynasty, is on the throne. 

Thebes, it should be mentioned, was situated on the 
east bank of the Nile, some 450 miles above Memphis 
and the later Cairo; and on the west bank stood the 
pyramids of some of the earlier Kings, grouped at the 
foot of the desert hills which here come forward in a 
magnificent range to within a mile or two of the river. 

Now, it was the Egyptian custom to bury a large 
amount of rich funeral-furniture and jewellery with 
their illustrious dead, in order that the spirit might have 
at hand those comforts and luxuries which the body had 





A GENERAL VIEW OF THE VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS 


i 


Ps-)4 
YT of fnl'F ,< 


. 





VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 41 


enjoyed in life; and the mummies themselves were 
adorned with valuable necklaces and other personal or- 
naments, while the coffins were often decorated with 
gold. There was thus always a great temptation to rob 
these tombs, and in the chaotic period previous to the 
foundation of the Eighteenth Dynasty, some of the 
Pharaonic pyramids had been plundered and the objects 
of value stolen. It became necessary, therefore, for the 
kings to consider a new method of burial which would 
secure some measure of safety for their bodies in the 
years tocome. If the mummy and its resting-place were 
destroyed the spirit would be rendered homeless, and if 
the tomb-stone inscriptions were broken up the name of 
the dead monarch might be lost; and thus his ghost 
would have to wander about, untended and unsustained 
by the pious prayers of the priests of the necropolis. 
This fear led to much thought being given to the ques- 
tion; and we can easily understand that the method of 
burial in a conspicuous pyramid had to be abandoned as 
being almost an invitation to robbery. 

The trouble was, however, that if the Pharaoh’s body 
was to be hidden away in some remote spot in order to 
secure its safety, the ancient custom of placing funeral 
offerings a.id saying prayers at the tomb would have to 
be given up, for these offerings and ceremonies would 
reveal the position of the hiding-place. In the earliest 
times such offerings had been placed at the east side of 
the tomb, that being the side on which the spirit came 
out to greet the rising sun, and in the age of the pyra- 
mids this custom had led to the erection of a temple on 
the east side of each pyramid, where the mortuary serv- 
ices on behalf of the dead monarch were held. Here 
food and drink for his spirit were placed; and thus it had 


42 TUTANKHAMEN 


not to make a ghostly journey of any distance in search 
of its material needs. 

In the case of the tomb of Senusert III at Abydos, 
the mortuary temple had been erected about half a mile 
to the east of the rock-cut sepulchre: the temple stood at 
the edge of the fields, but the tomb was up in the desert 
at the foot of the cliffs. There was, however, a little 
shrine under the cliffs where special services were per- 
haps conducted and offerings made. The concealed 
entrance of the royal sepulchre was surrounded by the 
conspicuous tombs of the chief nobles of that reign; and 
at the fall of the dynasty thieves had thus found their 
way in and had broken open the sarcophagus. 

Ahmose I saw the destruction which had been 
wrought, yet wished to be buried near his great pred- 
ecessor, more especially since Abydos was the burial 
place of the earliest Pharaohs, and was a city sacred to 
Osiris, the God of the Dead. He, therefore, laid his 
plans so that the tomb itself should be absolutely con- 
cealed and yet that the offerings to his spirit might be 
made close to it. 

He carried out his scheme in the following manner. 
In the open desert, less than a mile south of the tomb of 
Senusert III, he caused a long tunnel to be excavated in 
the rock which underlies the sand of the surface. From 
a small and rough entrance this tunnel wound its way 
down to a large eighteen-pillared hall, and thence passed 
on to a rough chamber deep in the bowels of the earth, 
wherein he was to be buried. ‘The mouth of the tomb 
was insignificant, and could easily be hidden and lost 
under the sand of this open plain; nor did he allow any 
of his nobles to be buried near him, lest this might give 
a clue to his whereabouts. Close to it, at the foot of the 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 43 


cliffs, he erected a terraced temple wherein his spirit 
could receive its food and drink. Then, to deceive pos- 
sible robbers, he carried all the chippings from the tunnel 
down to the edge of the fields, the best part of a mile 
away, and enclosed them in a dummy-pyramid which 
would, of course, be mistaken for the actual tomb. 

Whether he was ever buried here is not known. His 
mummy was found in a hiding-place at Thebes, whither 
it had been carried several hundred years later by pious 
hands; but whether it was taken there from Abydos or 
elsewhere cannot at present be decided. This tomb at 
Abydos contained several fragmentary pieces of gold, 
when it was discovered some years ago by Mr. C. T. 
Currelly; but, on the other hand, there was no trace of 
a stone sarcophagus. The place had been entirely plun- 
dered, for its secret location had become known by a 
circumstance which the King had left out of his calcula- 
tions: the roof of the underground hall had fallen in, 
thereby leaving a gaping pit in the sandy plain above. 

The successor of Ahmose I was Amenhotep I, and 
to this Pharaoh occurred the novel idea of hiding his 
body away on the top of the cliffs of Thebes when he 
should come to die. He chose for the site of his tomb, 
therefore, a dip or shallow ravine in the undulating sur- 
face of the summit, just behind that part of the necropo- 
lis now known as Dér el-Medineh. The entrance, cut in 
the slope of the hill, was a rough pit in which was a steep 
flight of steps leading down to a tunnel in the hillside, 
which brought one first to a small chamber and thence 
to a fair sized burial-hall and a further chamber. 

On the edge of the fields, rather over a mile due south 
of the tomb, he erected his mortuary temple, at a place 
now called Medinet Habu. This was a long way for 


44, TUTANKHAMEN 


his spirit to go to receive its offerings of food and drink; 
but this disadvantage was evidently considered worth 
enduring in order that the secret of the position of his 
tomb might be kept and his body might thus obtain im- 
munity from pillage. 

Amenhotep I appears to have constructed a tomb 
for his mother, Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, and this has 
recently been found by Mr. Carter in Dra Abu’l Negga, 
a part of the necropolis farther to the north. The tomb 
was situated on the top of the hills, and was entered by 
a pit from which a passage led to a well or shaft some 
30 feet deep. This well served both to deceive and 
balk possible robbers, and also to carry off any rain- 
water which might percolate through the filling of the 
entrance pit. Beyond it the passage continued, leading 
to a burial-hall, the ceiling of which was originally sup- 
ported by one pillar. In this tomb Mr. Carter found 
numerous fragments of vases, three of which had the 
cartouches of Ahmose I on them, eight had the name of 
Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, that monarch’s wife, and nine 
were inscribed with the name of Amenhotep I. Another 
fragment bore the name of King Ausserra Apepi of the 
Seventeenth Dynasty and his daughter Herath, which 
may perhaps indicate that the tomb had been usurped by 
Amenhotep I from this earlier king. It is not likely 
that Amenhotep I was buried with his mother: he was 
far more probably buried in the tomb on the top of the 
cliffs; but he did not thus escape the robbers, for the 
place was plundered in ancient times, and now it lies 
open, and is generally called simply No. 39, being re- 
garded as the tomb of an unknown person. 

My reasons for identifying it as that of Amenhotep I 
are rather interesting, and may be mentioned here. It 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 465 


is certainly a royal tomb, judging by its size and shape; 
and the absence of a well or shaft in it, as will presently 
be seen, dates it to some period before the reign of Thut- 
mose III. In the Abbott Papyrus an account is given 
of the inspection of certain royal tombs in the time of 
Rameses X, which had been said to be plundered. The 
first tomb on the list is that of Amenhotep I, the refer- 
ence reading as follows:—‘“The Tomb of King Amenho- 
tep I, which lies 120 cubits down from the buildings (7?) 
belonging to it which are called “The Height,’ north of 
the temple of ‘Amenhotep of the Garden.’ ” 

Now the temple of “Amenhotep of the Garden” may 
well be the later name of the King’s mortuary temple at 
Medinet Habu, which is known to have had a garden, the 
site of which, with its artificial lake, can still be seen. If 
we take a line due north of this, as the inscription tells 
us, we come to the well-known pathway leading over the 
hills behind Dér el-Medineh; and at the highest point of 
this track there are the ruins of a number of ancient 
huts, once occupied by watchmen, which may have been 
appropriately called “The Height.” From this emi- 
nence one commands a striking view of the King’stemple 
at Medinet Habu; and if we measure 120 average cubits 
of 20.63 inches, which is the regular cubit of the period, 
down the hill westward from the near side of this group 
of buildings, we find that the tape brings us exactly to 
the mouth of this tomb No. 89. Mr. Carter thought 
that the tomb which he found at Dra Abu’l Negga as 
mentioned above, was the sepulchre referred to in the 
Abbott Papyrus, but the 120 cubit measurement can- 
not be made to tally with it, except by means of some 
very improbable calculations, nor do the other directions 
agree. 


46 TUTANKHAMEN 


The next Pharaoh was Thutmose I; and he decided 
to make a tomb for himself close to that of his father.* 
Going a few yards westward from No. 89, that is to say 
into the desert, away from Thebes, one drops down into 
the southern corner of the great valley which is now 
famous as the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, but 
which was at that time a remote and desolate ravine. 
It is a magnificent amphitheatre surrounded by preci- 
pices or steep hillsides, dominated to the south by a 
mountain which rises up like a pyramid into the sky. 
This valley passes behind the great barrier-wall of the 
cliffs which face Thebes, and, with many twists and 
turns, comes out at last amongst the low hills at the ex- 
treme north end of the necropolis. It had been created 
by some long-forgotten prehistoric torrent which had 
here rushed down from the heights of the Sahara; and 
in the time of Thutmose I its whole length was strewn 
with water-worn boulders and stones, nor was there any 
pathway along it. 

There was not a blade of grass nor a trace of scrub 
in this deserted valley. The sun beat down on its life- 
less rocks all through the morning, and in the afternoon 
it lay in deep shadow, utterly silent except for the sigh- 
ing of the wind and the occasional cry of a jackal. 
Although shut off from the necropolis and the Nile val- 
ley by no more than a single wall of cliffs, it seemed to 
be infinitely remote and unearthly: a sterile, echoing re- 
gion like a hollow in the hills of the Underworld. 

Here, in the cul-de-sac at its south end, close to, and 
below, the tomb of Amenhotep I, the Pharaoh Thut- 
mose I caused his tomb to be excavated in the cliff face at 


* Its proximity to No. 39 is a further indication that the latter is the 
tomb of Amenhotep I. 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 47 


the foot of a precipice. The idea of cutting the tunnel 
straight into the face of a cliff was new, for in the case 
of the tombs of Senusert III and Ahmose I, described 
above, a pit in the level ground had led down to the en- 
trance; but the tomb of Amenhotep I (i.e. No. 39) gives 
the link between the old and the new type, for, as has 
been said, it is cut into the sloping side of a gully. 

This tomb of Thutmose I had, for the sake of secrecy, 
an entrance which was small and roughly hewn—a mere 
hole, just high enough to admit a man standing upright. 
A flight of steps led down to a square room cut out of 
the rock, and thence a second flight led on to the burial- 
hall, the roof of which was supported by one central 
column, as in the tomb of his grandmother, Ahmose- 
Nefertari described above. The walls of this hall were 
smoothed over with plaster, and a small sarcophagus of 
quartzite sandstone was dragged down and placed here 
for the reception of the King’s coffin. 

This tomb was made for the Pharaoh under the di- 
rection of a great noble named Anena, who was Over- 
seer of the Granary of Amon, Superintendent of the 
workmen in the Treasury of Karnak, and Superinten- 
dent of the Royal Buildings; and in the mortuary chapel 
of this personage an inscription was found in which 
occur these significant words: “I arranged for the hew- 
ing of a rock tomb for his majesty, alone, no one seeing, 
no one hearing.” ‘Thus we are able to realise that the 
burial of the Pharaohs of this period was conducted in 
absolute secrecy, so that their bodies might escape the 
attentions of the robbers. When Thutmose I was buried 
here in B.c. 1501, the funeral must have been conducted 
in the greatest possible privacy, the workmen and priests 
being sworn to silence by the most terrible oaths. The 


48 TUTANKHAMEN 


mouth of the tomb was filled in with stones, and boulders 
were probably placed over the surface so that the site 
might have a natural and undisturbed appearance. The 
chippings from the interior were dumped at some dis- 
tance, and were likewise covered with rocks and gravel. 

The mortuary services for the King’s spirit were con- 
ducted in the temple erected by Amenhotep I at Medinet 
Habu, that building being enlarged and newly deco- 
rated for the purpose. It must have been thought, how- 
ever, that the spirit’s daily journey down to the temple 
to receive its food and drink imposed considerable 
inconvenience upon it; and thus we find at about this 
period the custom of placing embalmed joints of meat 
in the tomb, each joint being enclosed in a separate box. 
Food had been placed in earlier tombs in small quanti- 
ties, but originally the main supplies of this kind had 
been left outside the sepulchre, and, as we have seen, in 
more recent ages they have been deposited in the mor- 
tuary temples. 

The next Pharaoh, Thutmose II, had a tomb made 
for him close to that of Thutmose I, at the bottom of 
the cliffs.* A rough flight of steps led down to the 
entrance of the tunnel, which sloped downwards to a 
small chamber and thence to a curious oval hall, the 
ceiling of which was supported by two pillars. The 
walls of this hall were plastered and tinted a sort of 
drab-colour to represent papyrus; and at the far end 
was a plain sarcophagus of quartzite sandstone, which, 


*Tomb No. 42. It has no inscription and is therefore generally re- 
garded as an unidentified tomb; but the following facts show pretty 
certainly that it was made for Thutmose II:—It is close to the tombs of 
Thutmose I and Thutmose III, and is similar in style to the latter, which 
is the only other tomb having an oval burial-hall. Like the tombs of 
Thutmose I and Hatshepsut, it has no well, but those of Thutmose III 
and his successors all have wells, so that it seems to be earlier than Thut- 
mose III. It is evidently a king’s tomb, by its size and shape. 








SES THE SECOND 


MUMMY OF RAME 


THE 





VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 49 


like the sarcophagus of Senusert ITI and other early 
kings, was uninscribed. Thutmose II added his name 
to the inscriptions on the wall of the temple of Amen- 
hotep I and Thutmose I at Medinet Habu, and did not 
erect a new building as his mortuary temple. 

So far only these two tombs, those of Thutmose I 
and II, were situated in the afterwards famous valley, 
and there was thus no thought as yet of this place being 
a regular royal necropolis. It was simply a hiding- 
place for the bodies of these two Pharaohs, just as the 
summit of the cliff above had been the hiding-place of 
the mummy of Amenhotep I; and we are to picture the 
valley, therefore, as still being a wild and desolate spot, 
apparently untrodden by the foot of man. All this part 
of the desert was dedicated to the goddess Hathor, who 
was visualised as a spotted cow living somewhere inside 
these western hills; and in order to discourage persons 
from entering this particular valley it was probably said 
to be an area sacred to the goddess, upon which no man 
must on any account trespass. In some such manner, 
at any rate, the hiding-place must have been kept 
inviolate. 

Thutmose IT was still alive when the power passed 
into the hands of Queen Hatshepsut; and she, knowing 
that she had many enemies in her own family, and fear- 
ing both them and the robbers of some future date, 
decided to hide her tomb in a far more remote part of 
the desert. A distant valley, deep in the hills to the 
west, was selected as the site; and here she caused her 
sepulchre to be hewn out of the rock high up in the pre- 
cipitous face of a cliff, over 200 feet above the bed of 
the valley below, and some 137 feet down from the top. 
A. flight of steps and a long tunnel led down to the 


50 TUTANKHAMEN 


burial-chamber, and here a fine sarcophagus of quartzite 
sandstone was, with infinite labour, hauled and dragged 
into position. It is the most astonishing tomb in Kgypt; 
and its clearance a few years ago was due to the skill 
and daring of Mr. Carter. 

Meanwhile, however, the Queen was erecting for 
herself the magnificent mortuary temple which is now 
known as Dér el-Bahri. It was set against the eastern 
face of the cliffs overlooking the Theban necropolis and 
the city of Thebes on the opposite bank of the river; and 
it was, in its original conception, a development of the 
idea which Ahmose I had carried into execution near his 
tomb at Abydos, as recorded above, that is to say it was 
a terrace-temple wherein the mortuary services for the 
royal spirit might be conducted. But when the Queen 
began to feel her position more secure, perhaps after 
the death or deposition of Thutmose II, she decided to 
make another tunnel-tomb for herself which should run 
in under this temple, in somewhat the manner in which 
the tomb of Ahmose I had penetrated underground 
towards his terrace-temple. 

Now, the silent and untrodden valley at the far end 
of which the tombs of Thutmose I and II were situated, 
passed just behind or on the west side of the cliffs which 
formed the background of her temple; and she therefore 
decided to cut a tunnel from this valley, which should 
run right under these cliffs and should end in a hall deep 
in the rock underneath her temple. In this hall she 
would be buried; and thus the mortuary services for the 
benefit of her spirit would be held directly above her 
mummy as it lay in its secret tomb beneath. Her spirit 
would rise up each day through the solid rock to greet 
the sunrise on the terraces of her temple; and the 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 51 


entrance to the tunnel would be so well hidden in the 
valley behind that her mummy would lie secure from 
robbery. 

The actual tunnel which was made was some 700 feet 
in length and over 300 feet in depth, but it curved off to 
the right, either owing to the workmen having lost their 
sense of direction as they laboured in the dim light of 
their lamps, or owing to the poor quality of the rock, 
which obliged them to swerve aside. In the burial-hall, 
the rough walls of which were lined with limestone 
blocks inscribed with religious texts, the Queen placed a 
fine quartzite sandstone sarcophagus for herself and 
another for her father, Thutmose I. Part of the floor 
of the hall was sunk somewhat lower than the rest, this 
being an innovation afterwards copied in later tombs. 
It is not known whether the Queen actually disinterred 
Thutmose I from his own tomb and re-buried him here; 
but it is pretty certain that she herself was laid to rest 
in this extraordinary sepulchre; for when it was exca- 
vated some years ago by Mr. Carter, after it had been 
plundered by ancient thieves, many fragments of the 
funeral-paraphernalia were found. 

Meanwhile, Thutmose III, Hatshepsut’s brother, 
who had reigned by her side, was making for himself a 
sepulchre close to that of ‘Thutmose II. It was cut into 
the rock in an almost inaccessible chimney in the cliffs, 
high above the tomb of Thutmose II, and not far below 
the tomb of Amenhotep I, that is to say right in the 
south corner of the valley. Hatshepsut had modelled 
her tomb on that of Ahmose I at Abydos, but Thutmose 
III copied and elaborated the plan of the tomb of 
Thutmose II. A flight of steps led down through a 
small rough entrance, easily able to be concealed. to a 


52 TUTANKHAMEN 


sloping passage and another staircase. Then came a 
deep shaft or well, like that in the tomb of Queen 
Ahmose-Nefertari, hewn out of the rock, completely 
cutting off the interior chambers. 

Its purpose, as in this earlier instance, was two-fold. 
Firstly, it served to carry off any rainwater which might 
penetrate through the filling of the entrance, since the 
place chosen for the tomb, in this rocky chimney, was 
very liable to become the bed of a torrent upon the rare 
occasions of a downpour. Secondly, it was a deterrent 
to robbers, for the entrance to the further chambers and 
passages on the opposite side of the well was blocked up 
and covered with plaster, so that only a blank wall was 
visible. The robbers, if they were without tackle, would 
thus abandon their godless work here; or, if they had 
ropes, would descend the shaft and, finding it empty, 
would think that the tomb had never been used. 

Beyond the well there was a pillared hall, upon the 
walls of which a long list of nearly 750 gods and demi- 
gods was inscribed. In the floor there was a flight of 
steps leading down to a magnificent oval-shaped burial- 
hall, like that in the tomb of Thutmose II; but this stair- 
case was planned so that it could be filled up to the top 
and thus concealed. In the burial-hall stood the stone 
sarcophagus, and on the walls were texts and illustra- 
tions from the “Book of That Which is in the Under- 
world,” painted in outline like an enlargement of a roll 
of papyrus. It will be remembered that the walls of 
the oval hall in the tomb of Thutmose II were also 
painted to represent papyrus, but the religious inscrip- 
tions had never been written, probably owing to the 
tomb having been left unfinished. 

Thus, Thutmose I, Thutmose II, Hatshepsut, and 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS = 53 


Thutmose III, were all buried in this one valley; and 
though the exact location of each tomb was a profound 
secret, this desert ravine must now have been pretty gen- 
erally known to be the royal burial-ground, and was no 
doubt talked about as such in awed whispers. Thutmose 
III had built his mortuary temple on the other side of 
the barrier of cliffs, near the edge of the fields, far away 
from his hidden tomb; and thus all possible precautions 
had been taken to secure secrecy and to avoid robbery. 

Besides these four royal sepulchres, there were also 
in this valley a few small tombs, each consisting of a 
single shaft, from the bottom of which the burial-cham- 
ber led out. These were the burial-places of the Vizirs 
or other great men of the land, who had been allowed to 
rest near their royal masters. Most of the great men of 
the period were buried at the bottom of somewhat 
similar shafts in a hill now known as Shekh abd’el- 
Gurneh in the main Theban necropolis; and above these 
shafts there were two or three rock-cut chambers which 
served as their mortuary chapels. But in certain in- 
stances these upper chambers are found to have no 
burial-pits belonging to them; and I think that where 
this is the case we may suppose the owner to have been 
buried in the royal valley, near his sovereign. It is not 
always certain where the queens, princes, and princesses 
were interred at this period; but in certain cases they 
were undoubtedly laid to rest in the tomb of the Pharaoh 
of their day, for some of their bodies have been found in 
the royal sepulchres. 

The next king was Amenhotep IT (38.c.1447-1420) ; 
and he followed the family custom, and excavated his 
tomb in the valley, choosing a place for it in the western 
side of the south end, about a hundred yards from the 


54 TUTANKHAMEN 


tomb of Thutmose I, and cutting it into the base of the 
precipice as that Pharaoh had also done. The entrance 
was small and rough, as in the case of the earlier tombs 
of this dynasty; and a flight of steps brought one to a 
sloping passage which descended to a second staircase, 
leading to a well, copied from the tomb of Thutmose 
III. There was some decoration on the walls of this 
well, in order to suggest the false idea that it was the 
burial-place. Beyond this, concealed behind a blocked 
doorway in the opposite wall, was a two-pillared hall, 
through the floor of which, again as in the tomb of Thut- 
mose III, a hidden stairway descended into the six- 
pillared burial-hall. The walls of this hall were painted, 
as before, like papyrus, and were inscribed with texts 
and scenes from the “Book of That Which is in the 
Underworld.” Upon the pillars the King was shown 
in the presence of various gods, drawn in outline. At 
the far end of this hall, the floor of which is here at a 
deeper level, as in the tomb of Hatshepsut, the quartzite 
sandstone sarcophagus was placed. This King’s mor- 
tuary temple was erected on the edge of the fields just 
to the south of that of Thutmose IIT. 

The succeeding Pharaoh was Thutmose IV (B.c. 
1420-1411), who chose for his sepulchre a site close to 
that of Hatshepsut, and for his mortuary temple a site 
some distance to the south of the temple of Amenhotep 
II. The tomb followed much the same plan as that of 
Amenhotep IT, but the quartzite sandstone sarcophagus 
was larger, and the painting on the walls of the burial- 
hall and well were more elaborate, the figures being no 
longer shown in outline, but being completely painted. 
A young boy, perhaps one of the king’s sons who had 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS _ 55 


died during his father’s lifetime, was buried with the 
Pharaoh in this tomb. 

Amenhotep IIT (3.c. 1411-1375) was the next king; 
but it seems that he regarded this valley as being now 
too obviously a royal necropolis to be safe from robbery. 
There were at this time five royal sepulchres in it: those 
of Thutmose I, II, and III, Hatshepsut, and Amen- 
hotep IT, as well as a number of small tombs wherein the 
vizirs and other great personages were buried; and the 
new king therefore decided to make his own tomb else- 
where. Immediately behind this valley there was 
another ravine, and here, in virgin ground, he caused 
his tomb to be excavated, amidst the boulders which lay 
heaped about the base of a precipice. The entrance was 
larger and more carefully hewn than those of his pred- 
ecessors, but the chambers, passages and well in this 
sepulchre followed pretty closely the plan of the tombs 
of ‘Thutmose IV and Amenhotep II; and the sarcopha- 
gus was placed at the far end of the pillared hall in a 
depression in the floor similar to that first introduced 
by Hatshepsut. The walls of this hall and of the well 
were painted with the figures of the King and the gods, 
and were inscribed with religious texts as before, all 
these being more elaborately executed than had previ- 
ously been the case. His mortuary temple was erected 
on the edge of the fields to the south of the temple of 
his predecessor, and two great seated figures of the King 
were erected in front of its main entrance. These fig- 
ures, now known as “The Colossi,” still at the present 
day sit facing the city of Thebes, though the temple 
behind them has almost entirely disappeared. 

During this Pharaoh’s lifetime the death occurred of 
his parents-in-law, Yuaa and Tuau, the father and 


56 TUTANKHAMEN 


mother of Queen Tiy; and since the valley where his 
ancestors lay had now been abandoned by him, he was 
not unwilling to allow them to be buried init. He there- 
fore caused a new type of tomb to be made for them, 
which should be larger than those of the vizirs and 
smaller than those of the kings. A flight of steps led 
down to the entrance, and then a short subterranean 
passage sloped down to a single undecorated chamber, 
some 80 feet long and 11 feet broad, in which the two 
mummies were laid to rest, surrounded by a mass of 
funeral-furniture. 

An almost similar tomb was made for Queen Tiy 
during her lifetime, a short distance from this sepulchre 
of her parents. One descended by a flight of steps to a 
passage which sloped down to a single chamber, rather 
smaller than that of Yuaa and Tuau, since it had to 
accommodate only one mummy. ‘The walls were un- 
decorated, but were more carefully smoothed and shaped 
than those in her parents’ tomb. 

Akhnaton (B.c. 13875-1358) was the next king, but, 
for religious reasons, he removed his residence from 
Thebes to Tell-el-Amarna in Middle Egypt, where he 
was ultimately buried in a sepulchre amongst the desert 
hills some seven miles to the east of his city. <A flight of 
steps led to the entrance, beyond which was a sloping 
passage terminating in another stairway. At the bottom 
of this was the well, and beyond it was the burial-hall in 
which the red granite sarcophagus stood, part of the 
floor being made at a lower level to receive it. One of 
the King’s daughters died during his lifetime, and he 
therefore caused some extra rooms to be made for her 
leading off the corridor of his tomb. Akhnaton having 
abandoned the worship of the old deities, the walls of 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 57 


his tomb were not decorated with religious texts or 
paintings of the gods, but funeral and other scenes were 
substituted. 

Before his death he associated Smenkhkara on the 
throne with him, but this king’s tomb is not known, 
though it may be one of two tombs which were made in 
the vicinity of Akhnaton’s. Then came Tutankhamen 
(B.c. 1858-1351) who brought the court back to Thebes, 
and abandoned Tell-el-Amarna; but he did not think it 
safe to leave Akhnaton’s body lying in its remote sepul- 
chre, and he therefore brought it back to Thebes. Hav- 
ing nowhere else to put it,—the position of the earlier 
tombs being now forgotten—he opened the tomb of 
Queen Tiy, where that lady had been laid to rest a few 
years previously, and placed the mummy of Akhnaton, 
her son, beside her. 

He then began to make a sepulchre for himself; but 
the religious revolution of Akhnaton, and the abandon- 
ment of Thebes, had swept aside all traditions. ‘The 
only tomb he had seen belonging to the old order was 
that of Queen Tiy, for the earlier tombs in the valley 
were deeply buried and their exact position lost; and 
he therefore modelled his tomb on hers, selecting a posi- 
tion not more than twenty or thirty paces from it. The 
usual flight of steps led to a sloping passage, at the end 
of which was an undecorated chamber; but wishing to 
make the tomb more imposing than that of Queen Tiy, 
he sank the floor level at one end of this chamber, in the 
manner he had observed in the tomb of Akhnaton (who 
had copied earlier tombs in this respect) ; and he then 
enlarged this lower part, and ultimately it was parti- 
tioned off by a built wall. Two small store-rooms were 
added, one leading from the outer chamber and one from 


58 TUTANKHAMEN 


the inner. The walls of the tomb of Akhnaton had been 
decorated with funeral scenes, and ‘Tutankhamen there- 
fore caused some paintings representing his own funeral, 
and some figures of the sacred apes of the sun, to be 
executed on the walls of his burial-chamber; but the 
outer room and passage were left undecorated as in the 
tomb of Queen Tiy. He does not seem to have built a 
mortuary temple for himself, but perhaps he used the 
now destroyed temple of Amenhotep ITI. 

Queen Tiy’s coffin had been placed inside a gilded 
wooden shrine; and the fact that all the royal tombs 
from that of Hatshepsut to that of Akhnaton had had 
a sunken area at one end of the burial-hall may perhaps 
indicate that a similar shrine or series of shrines had 
encased the sarcophagus of each monarch. 'Tutankha- 
men followed this custom, and made arrangements for 
his coffin to be enclosed in this manner; but we do not 
know whether the magnificent shrine or tabernacle 
recently found in his tomb was of large or small size as 
compared with those of his predecessors. Personally I 
should think it was not so big as that of, say, Amenhotep 
IIl. 

King Ay, the father-in-law of the late Akhnaton, 
succeeded (B.c. 1851-1346) ; but, regarding his position 
as insecure, he decided to hide his tomb more effectually, 
at some remote spot where his body might escape the 
revenge of his enemies or the cupidity of thieves. He 
therefore selected a site in the valley to the west, where 
Amenhotep III was buried, but a considerable distance 
further up it. The entrance was hidden amongst a 
group of tumbled boulders; and the steps leading down 
to it were wider and more imposing than those of Tut- 
ankhamen’s sepulchre. In general the tomb was mod- 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS | 59 


elled on that of Akhnaton, at Tell-el-Amarna, but it 
was on a larger scale. At the bottom of the first stair- 
way a passage sloped down to another stairway, beyond 
which was an ante-room, leading on the burial-chamber, 
where stood a large sarcophagus of pink granite. The 
walls of this room were painted with scenes representing 
the King hunting wild-fowl amongst the reeds of the 
marshes, and there were also some figures of the sacred 
apes of the sun; but the main passage was undecorated. 
He does not appear to have had a separate mortuary 
temple. 

Next came Horemheb (8.c, 1346-1315), a reaction- 
ary Pharaoh whose great desire was to re-establish the 
religious customs of the earlier kings of the Eighteenth 
Dynasty. For this reason, and also perhaps because, 
being a usurper, he wished to rest in the company of 
the great Pharaohs of the past, he caused his tomb to 
be made in the main valley, choosing a site between 
the sepulchres of Tutankhamen and Amenhotep II. 
Now, during the troubled times of the Akhnaton 
“heresy,” the tomb of Thutmose IV had been discov- 
ered by thieves and plundered; and an inscription has 
been found which states that Horemheb “re-buried” 
that king. He thus knew what that tomb looked like, 
and he had also seen the sepulchre of his predecessor, 
Ay. He therefore modelled his tomb on the scale of 
the latter, but introduced many of the features of the 
former, especially in the decoration. 

Flights of steps and sloping passages, like those of 
the tomb of Ay, led down to a well, as in the tomb of 
Thutmose IV, beyond which there was the hall with the 
concealed staircase in its floor, leading down to the large, 
pillared room where stood the sarcophagus of pink 


60 TUTANKHAMEN 


granite. The walls of the well were painted with figures 
of himself and the gods, as in the tomb of Thutmose IV; 
and on the sides of the burial-hall were inscriptions and 
scenes from the “Book of That Which is in the Under- 
world.” Just before he died he gave orders that these 
paintings should be sculptured into reliefs, an innova- 
tion which had only begun to be carried out when it was 
interrupted by his death. The bones of four persons 
were found in his tomb, and it seems, thus, that other 
members of his family were buried with him. His mor- 
tuary temple is unknown. 

I must not omit to mention that in the early years of 
his reign his hatred of the religious “heresy” of Akhna- 
ton became so intense that he caused the tomb of Queen 
Tiy, in which that King had been deposited by Tutankh- 
amen, to be opened and his name to be erased from 
his mummy and coffin. The tomb being contaminated 
by the presence of the “heretic,” he then removed Queen 
Tiy’s mummy elsewhere, and, leaving Akhnaton’s body 
alone and bereft of its name, closed the sepulchre once 
more. 

The next king was Rameses I, founder of the Nine- 
teenth Dynasty (B.c. 1815-1314), but as he only reigned 
for one year he had no time to complete his tomb, which 
was situated a few paces from that of Horemheb, and 
which was evidently intended to be on the same scale. 
A fine flight of steps led down to a sloping passage and 
a second staircase, at the bottom of which there was to 
have been a well; but the King’s death here interrupted 
the work, and instead of a well, a chamber was made in 
which the large pink granite sarcophagus was placed. 
The walls of this chamber were then decorated with 
paintings representing the King in the presence of the 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 61 


gods. When, some time later, this Pharaoh’s widow 
died she was buried in a tomb specially made for her in 
another valley, some distance to the south, now called 
the Valley of the Queens; and from that time onwards 
for some generations, the queens were buried there, 
together with the royal princes. 

The next Pharaoh was Sety I (B.c. 1313-1292), and 
he planned for himself a huge sepulchre very similar to 
that of Horemheb. It was situated close to the tomb of 
Rameses I, and the entrance is very similar, being now 
very much larger than the rough little entrances of the 
sepulchres of the earlier kings of the Eighteenth Dy- 
nasty. A flight of steps led down to a sloping passage, 
which was followed by another flight and a further con- 
tinuation of the passage. Then came the well (now 
filled up), beyond which was a pillared chamber, with 
the usual concealed stairway in its floor. Another pas- 
sage and another stairway then led down to the great 
hall in which stood the sarcophagus, on this occasion 
made of alabaster. 

But no longer was the King satisfied with the old 
form of decoration: this tomb was sculptured from end 
to end with richly coloured reliefs and long religious 
inscriptions. The mortuary temple was erected to the 
north of those of his predecessors, not far from the 
mouth of the valley; and it is possible that at about this 
period some sort of roadway was made leading up to 
the royal burial-place. 

The tomb of Rameses II, the succeeding king (B.c. 
1292-1225) is so smashed up, and blocked with rubbish, 
that one cannot now say what it was like. It was situ- 
ated but a few paces from that of Rameses I, and was 
evidently a large sepulchre, probably much like that of 


62 TUTANKHAMEN 


Sety I. This King’s mortuary temple, now known as 
the Ramesseum, was erected in the open ground between 
those of Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV. 

The next Pharaoh, Merenptah (B.c. 1225-1215), 
made his tomb close to that of Rameses IT; and one of 
these two was the first large royal tomb since the days 
of Hatshepsut, in which the well was dispensed with, 
nor was it again used. The hidden stairway in the floor 
of the wall beyond the well was also givenup. But these 
protections against robbery being abandoned, it became 
necessary to find some other means of safeguarding the 
body; and this King, therefore, ordered an enormous 
outer lid of granite to be placed over his granite sar- 
cophagus. So large was it, however, that the workmen 
failed to drag it into position, and it was left lying in 
one of the passages. ‘The Pharaoh’s mortuary temple 
was erected just to the north of that of Amenhotep ITI. 

The next king Amenmeses (B.c. 1215), excavated a 
tomb for himself near by; but he appears to have been 
dethroned, and all the figures and inscriptions on the 
walls of the sepulchre were carefully obliterated. Sep- 
tah and Sety II followed, each making a tomb for him- 
self in the valley; and then came Setnakht, the founder 
of the Twentieth Dynasty. He began a tomb for him- 
self a few yards from that of Amenmeses; but the latter 
must have been hidden and its situation forgotten, for 
the new tomb was driven straight into it and had to be 
abandoned. Queen Tausert, wife of Setnakht, being 
for some time sole ruler of Egypt, had a large tomb in 
this valley; and she allowed her vizir, the Chancellor 
Bey, to make an imposing sepulchre here for himself, 
which was an innovation. 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS _ 638 


Rameses III (B.c. 1198-1167), the succeeding king, 
deviated the course of the forsaken tomb of Setnakht, 
and made it into a very presentable sepulchre for him- 
self; while his magnificent mortuary temple was erected 
at Medinet Habu, close to that of Amenhotep I. 

An interesting sketch-plan of the tomb of Rameses 
IV, made by its architect, has come down to us; and in 
this it is interesting to notice that the sarcophagus is 
enclosed in five frame-like oblongs, one outside the other, 
these being painted to look like wood. It is probable 
that these represent a series of shrines or tabernacles 
built over the coffin, such as were found in the tomb of 
Tutankhamen. 

After the reign of Rameses III the Pharaohs seem 
no longer to have taken much trouble to hide their tombs, 
and as they ceased to build mortuary temples for them- 
selves at the edge of the fields, it is possible that the 
services on behalf of their souls were now performed at 
the mouths of the sepulchres themselves, for these 
mouths were now large and imposing, and the entrance 
passage was no longer a little rabbit-hole sloping at a 
steep angle, as in the case of the tombs of the earlier 
Pharaohs of the Highteenth Dynasty, but was a fine 
level corridor of palatial proportions. Much bigger sar- 
cophagi, with huge lids, were now used, as a protection 
against robbers; and thus each Pharaoh’s body lay under 
several tons of granite. 

The remaining Pharaohs of this dynasty were each 
called Rameses, and all of them, except one, were buried 
up here in the valley, Rameses XII (B.c. 1118-1090), 
who ended the Twentieth Dynasty, being the last king 
to make himself a tomb in this royal necropolis, which 
was no longer the wild and lonely ravine of earlier times, 


64 TUTANKHAMEN 


but a place that echoed with the voices and footsteps of 
priests and workmen. 

But though these later tombs were no longer made in 
secret, the sepulchres of the earlier kings were well 
hidden; and it is obvious, for instance, that Rameses VI 
(B.c. 1157) did not know of the existence of the tomb 
of Tutankhamen (B.c. 1358); for he cut his sepulchre 
into the rock immediately above it, the earlier tomb 
being hidden under tons of chippings dumped there 
from the excavation of other tombs. 

These later Ramesside kings lived in very troubled 
times, and they were quite unable to deal with the sys- 
tematic robbery of the tombs which was now taking 
place here in the royal valley and also throughout the 
Theban necropolis. The tombs of the Pharaohs must 
have contained at this time a vast treasure of gold and 
semi-precious stones; and we can easily realise that since 
the small sepulchre of Tutankhamen, who was quite a 
minor king, has been found to contain so much gold, the 
larger tombs of the more important kings must have 
been huge storehouses of ancient wealth. A great con- 
spiracy for robbing the tombs was detected in the reign 
of Rameses LX, and in another chapter I shall give an 
account of the trial of the culprits. 

At length, some two centuries later, a devoted band 
of priests or nobles undertook the removal of all the 
endangered mummies which they could find, to a private 
tomb near Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, where they 
thought they would be safe; and here the royal coffins 
were ranged in a double row, the entrance being so 
effectually concealed that it remained lost and un- 
touched until modern times. At some other period the 

















THE ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 
Cut into the hillside below the later tomb of Rameses VI. 





VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS _ 65 


tomb of Amenhotep II was discovered and opened, and 
another group of royal mummies was hidden in it. 

During the centuries which followed the robbers 
ransacked the abandoned valley, stealing the gold and 
valuables, smashing the vases and utensils, and using 
the furniture for fuel: until, so far as we know, only 
three tombs remained undevastated—those of Queen 
Tiy, Yuaa and Tuau, and Tutankhamen. The two lat- 
ter had both been slightly robbed shortly after the 
burials; but the tomb of Tiy, in which was the body of 
Akhnaton, remained intact until it was found by Mr. 
Davis and myself a few years ago. 

I must now go back for a few moments to relate the 
subsequent history of the burials of the Pharaohs after 
the royal valley had been abandoned. On the death of 
Rameses XII, the priest-kings of the Twenty-first 
Dynasty held the throne until B.c. 945; but the necropo- 
lis in which they were buried has never been traced. 
The mummies of some of these Pharaohs were found in 
modern times in the hiding-place to which the ancient 
priests had carried the royal bodies for better protec- 
tion, as related above; and it is clear, therefore, that the 
endangered tombs from which they were taken could 
not have been situated at any great distance. It is 
almost inconceivable that a group of royal tombs, each 
with its separate entrance, could have escaped the eye 
of native plunderers or of excavators, even though they 
were situated in some distant and remote desert valley; 
and I am therefore inclined to think that these kings 
must have been buried in one large mausoleum, like the 
Serapeum at Sakkara, having but a single small en- 
trance. Perhaps some day we shall hit upon this 
entrance in one of these desert valleys, and shall descend 


66 TUTANKHAMEN 


into a great corridor from which the various royal sepul- 
chres lead off, as in the case of the tombs of the Apis 
bulls in the Serapeum, and shall find them full of mag- 
nificent funeral-furniture, not more damaged by the 
ancient thieves than was the furniture of Tutankhamen. 

The native Pharaohs who reigned over Egypt from 
the Twenty-second to Thirtieth Dynasties (B.c. 945- 
342) lived mainly in the Delta, and their tombs are lost 
under the fields of that densely cultivated region. He- 
rodotus states that the tombs of the Pharaohs of the 
Twenty-sixth Dynasty were built in the temple at Sais, 
close to the sanctuary; but the ruins of that city, near 
Sa el-Hagar in the Delta, offer little promise to the 
archeologist. The sarcophagi of two kings of the Thir- 
tieth Dynasty are preserved, one at Cairo and one in 
the British Museum; but their tombs are lost. 

The kings of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (8.c. 304-30) 
were buried around the tomb of Alexander the Great at 
Alexandria; and the ill-starred Cleopatra, the last 
queen of Egypt, is stated by Plutarch to have built a 
mausoleum for herself adjoining the temple of Isis in 
that city. It was in this building that Antony died, and 
here also the queen killed herself, thus bringing the 
history of Egypt’s royal tombs to an end in a tomb. 

But to return to the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. 
In Greek and Roman times tourists used to visit this 
necropolis in considerable numbers, descending by 
torchlight into such of the tombs as lay open, and they 
were wont to scratch their names or scribble their com- 
ments upon the sculptured walls. It is interesting to 
notice that two of these sight-seers, Dionysios and Po- 
seidonax, hailed from Marseilles, while some came from 
other distant places. There is an inscription stating 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS _ 67 


that one Apollophanes of Lycopolis visited the tombs 
in the seventh year of Antoninus; another visitor records 
a date in the reign of Augustus; and there are a few 
other dates to be seen. There is the record of a certain 
Jasios, who says: “I have seen the peculiarly excellent 
workmanship of these tombs, which is unutterable to 
us.” A Roman official named Januarius states in Latin 
that he came with his daughter Januarina, and that he 
“saw and marvelled”; and he says, “Valete omnes.” A 
curious Christian prayer is: “O God Almighty, and 
Saint Kollouthos, and Saint Father-Patermouthis, and 
Saint Father-Ammonios the Anchorite, intercede with 
- God that He may grant life to Artemidora with Paph- 
nuce for a little time .... ” And the following is 
rather amusing: “I, Philastrios the Alexandrian, who 
have come to Thebes, and who have seen with my eyes 
the work of these tombs of astounding horror, have 
spent a delightful day.” 

In the time of Strabo some forty tombs were known 
to exist, and Diodorus speaks of seventeen being open 
in his day, but says that forty-seven were recorded in 
the official register kept by the priests, which would 
mean that they counted in several of the small pits 
wherein the vizirs had been buried. Napoleon’s arche- 
ologists mention eleven; in 1835 twenty-one were open; 
and at the present day, counting the small pits, over 
sixty are known. 

In 1881, the hiding-place wherein the ancient priests 
had secreted the bodies of the kings, was found near 
Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Dér el-Bahri. A pit 
some forty feet deep led to a passage about 220 feet 
long, at the end of which there was a chamber contain- 
ing the royal mummies. Here were the bodies of 


68 TUTANKHAMEN 


Ahmose I, Amenhotep I, Thutmose ITI and ITI, Sety I, 
Rameses IT and III, and many others; some of them 
lying in their original coffins, some in coffins which did 
not belong to them. ‘They were all taken to the Cairo 
Museum, where, sad to relate, some of them are “on 
show” in glass cases, to be jibed at by flippant visitors. 

For the last five and twenty years extensive excava- 
tions have been conducted in the Valley. In 1899, M. 
Loret, who was then Director-General of Antiquities 
in Egypt, discovered the tombs of Thutmose I, Thut- 
mose III, and Amenhotep IT; and in the last named he 
found the bodies of Thutmose IV, Amenhotep III, 
Merenptah, Rameses IV, Rameses V, and Rameses VI, 
which had been taken there by the priests, as mentioned 
above, in order to save them from the robbers. Large 
numbers of antiquities were found, but these tombs had 
all been much pillaged, and presented a spectacle of 
great devastation, the objects being broken up and 
scattered and the bodies in most cases much knocked 
about. 

In 1902, Mr. Howard Carter, at the expense of Mr. 
Theodore M. Davis, excavated the tomb of Thutmose 
IV, and found many antiquities therein, mostly smashed 
up. In the following year he found the tomb of Queen 
Hatshepsut, but hardly anything had been left in it by 
the plunderers. In 1905, Mr. Quibell and I, working 
at the expense of Mr. Davis, found the tomb of Yuaa 
and Tuau, the parents of Queen Tiy, and here at last 
a burial was brought to light which had not been much 
damaged by thieves, though the bodies had been dis- 
turbed and the jewellery taken. Here were wondertul 
chairs, beds, tables, chests, and so forth, which are 
described in my Glory of the Pharaohs. 


VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF KINGS 69 


In 1907, Mr. Davis’s excavations, under my super- 
vision, led to the discovery of Queen Tiy’s tomb, in 
which the body of Akhnaton was found wrapped in 
sheets of gold. In a hiding-place under a rock, not far 
away we found a blue-glazed cup bearing the cartouche 
of Tutankhamen, and in a tomb-pit we discovered a 
number of fragments of gold, probably torn from 
funeral-furniture, inscribed with the cartouches of that 
king and his wife, and with the name of Ay as a private 
individual, that is to say before he came to the throne. 
These were probably the remains of a robbed tomb of 
a vizir or noble. The same excavations laid bare the 
tomb of Horemheb in 1908, but this had been badly 
plundered and not much was found. 

Five years ago these excavations in the Valley were 
taken over by the late Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter, 
who were rewarded by the discovery of the tomb of 
Tutankhamen, the greatest “find” ever made in Egypt. 
Only a very small portion of this wonderful valley now 
remains to be examined, and perhaps there are no more 
royal tombs to be found, though it may be hoped that 
one or two will still be discovered—the tomb of 
Smenkhkara, for instance. 

At the present time, visitors from all over the world 
come to Luxor, the modern town built upon the site of 
ancient Thebes, to see the ruins left by the Pharaohs; 
and, crossing the Nile to the West bank, they go up to 
the royal necropolis by the road which has now been 
made along the winding valley, or they walk over the 
cliffs by the bridle-path which passes across the hills 
above Hatshepsut’s temple. Seven of the most im- 
portant tombs are lit by electricity, and sixteen are open 
to the public. The once desolate and lonely gorge, how- 


70 TUTANKHAMEN 


ever, would hardly be recognised in the present well- 
kept and well-guarded tourist-resort, with its tidy roads 
and neat walls and its many tombs each protected by 
iron gates, 


CHAPTER III 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 


the expense, and with the help, of Lord Carnarvon, 
began the excavations in the Valley of the Tombs 

of the Kings which resulted, in 1922, in the discovery 
of the tomb of Tutankhamen. During these years he 
made a systematic examination of the sides and bed of 
the valley hidden under the tons of rock-chippings 
thrown out in ancient times by the workmen employed 
in tunnelling the royal tombs into the hillsides. This 
mass of debris deeply covered the lower surfaces of the 
cliffs and slopes around the valley; and it was Mr. Car- 
ter’s object to leave no single portion of the rock-face 
unexamined, lest the entrance to some buried tomb 
might be overlooked. During previous excavations on 
this site, only certain promising sections of the valley 
had been fully examined; and I may mention that in 
the work financed by Mr. Davis, between 1905 and 
1912, we had cleared the areas on both sides of the spot 
at which the new discovery was afterwards made, but 
we had here left a small section untouched, because at 
this point there was the large tomb of Rameses VI, and 
we did not think it likely therefore that any other 
sepulchre would be found within that area of the hillside. 
Mr. Carter, however, during the course of his com- 
plete clearance of the valley, removed the accumulations 


of debris from the slopes of the hill just below this 
71 


[: the year 1915 Mr. Howard Carter, working at 


72 TUTANKHAMEN 


tomb; and the thoroughness of his work was justified 
and rewarded by the discovery one day of the lintel of 
a doorway of a sepulchre which evidently passed into. 
the hillside exactly under this Ramesside tomb. When 
the tons of chippings and rocks were cleared away, a 
flight of some sixteen steps was laid bare, leading down 
to a walled-up doorway; and it was apparent from the 
shape and style of this entrance that he had found a 
tomb of the Eighteenth Dynasty. 

He at once telegraphed to Lord Carnarvon, who 
was then in England, informing him of the discovery; 
and, at the end of November, 1922, when the latter had 
arrived at Thebes in answer to the welcome summons, 
the sealed doorway was opened, and an entrance was 
effected by the excavating party, who then found them- 
selves in a plain, rock-cut passage, leading down at a 
steep angle into the darkness. 

With beating hearts the excavators walked down 
this sloping way, which was just high enough to permit 
of their standing upright, and which proved to be about 
five-and-twenty feet in length. 

At the bottom there was another wall, built across 
a doorway, and covered with plaster, stamped with the 
seal of the necropolis; but there were indications that 
robbers had entered through a small hole which later 
had been blocked up and re-sealed, probably by the 
ancient officials of the necropolis. When this hole had 
been pierced, Mr. Carter, holding an electric torch, 
thrust his head and arm through, while Lord Carnarvon 
and his companions waited breathlessly to hear what 
he saw. 

“Wonderful! Marvellous!” Mr. Carter exclaimed; 
and soon Lord Carnarvon was pulling at his arm, cry- 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN ~ 73 


ing: “Hi! let me have a look!” But Mr. Carter, lost in 
the wonder of all he saw, could not be moved, and for 
some moments Lord Carnarvon was obliged to wait 
with such patience as he could command. 

At last Mr. Carter was pulled from the hole, so the 
scene was jestingly represented to me, “like a cork 
from a bottle,” and Lord Carnarvon took his place, 
afterwards vividly describing what he saw as looking 
like the property-room behind the scenes at a panto- 
mime, so full of strange figures and furniture was the 
dark chamber. 

Presently Mr. Carter squeezed himself through the 
aperture, and dropped into the silent room beyond, 
where no footstep had trod for some three thousand 
years; but once inside he could not be persuaded to 
come back: he was like a ferret gone into a hole. His 
hollow voice bade them wait, and they heard only his 
exclamations echoing in the darkness, and saw the flash 
of his torch as it passed from one group of shining 
objects to another. At length he returned with the 
news that the tomb was undoubtedly that of Tutankha- 
men, whose cartouche was inscribed on many of the 
articles; and, after the entrance had been somewhat 
widened, the other members of the party were able to 
climb into the chamber. The scene which they beheld 
was bewildering in its magnificence and its strangeness. 
The room, which was hewn out of the limestone rock 
and was undecorated, was about 25 feet long from north 
to south, 12 feet broad from east to west, and 9 or 10 
feet in height, the entrance being at about the middle 
of the east side. It was stacked with gorgeous funeral- 
furniture, so well preserved that the enormous gulf of 


74 TUTANKHAMEN 


time between the present day and the era of the Pha- 
raohs was bridged in an instant. 

The north wall, which was a built partition, covered 
with pink plaster, was at once seen to shut off a further 
chamber, or an extension of this room; and in the middle 
of the wall there was a doorway blocked up by stones 
entirely covered with grey cement whereon were 
stamped the royal seals. This did not seem to have been 
touched, but on the other hand, the chamber in which 
they now stood showed evident signs of having been 
hastily ransacked in ancient times by tomb-robbers, who 
had probably entered it a few years after the burial, or 
perhaps in the troubled times of the later Ramesside 
kings. 

To those who saw this blocked-up doorway, as I did, 
while yet the sealing was unbroken, the thought was 
awe-inspiring that in the darkness on the other side of 
the wall the Pharaoh for whom the sepulchre had been 
made lay slumbering in his coffin, and would soon be 
aroused. One wondered whether his sleep of three 
thousand years and more was already being disturbed 
by the voices and the footfalls of the excavating party, 
or whether, deep in oblivion, he had not yet heard the 
sounds in the outer chamber. 

But while the sealed doorway showed at once that 
the full extent of the discovery could not be ascertained 
for a long time to come, the extraordinary collection of 
objects in this first chamber was sufficient to defeat the 
comprehension and to overwhelm the brains of those 
who now stood staring about them in amazement. All 
around the room the funeral-furniture was stacked 
against the walls or lay upon the floor in confusion, so 
that there was little space in which to move about. The 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 75 


ancient robbers had roughly heaped beds, chests, and 
chairs on top of one another during their search for 
objects of intrinsic value, and had emptied the contents 
of caskets and boxes on to the floor. Then had come 
the officials of the necropolis, who had hastily attempted 
to tidy the place up, and had crammed some of the 
scattered clothes and miscellaneous articles back into 
these boxes again, but had not touched the disordered 
heaps piled up against the walls. 

The chamber looked, indeed, as Lord Carnarvon 
said, like a full store-room at a theatre, in which actors 
in a hurry had been wildly searching for some lost 
article, and had heaped the boxes, the furniture and the 
bizarre stage-properties out of their way. 

It was difficult for the brain to take in the fact that 
these shining pieces of furniture had been placed in the 
tomb centuries before ancient Rome was heard of; and 
the excavators were conscious of a feeling of fantastic 
unreality as they crept about the room, the electric lights 
which they carried casting their shadows like black 
phantoms upon the walls. 

Two life-sized and awe-inspiring wooden statues of 
the Pharaoh guarded the sealed doorway in the north 
wall, one at either corner, facing each other. In each 
case the figure wore a headdress covered with gold-leaf, 
a gold-collar, gold bracelets, gold skirt or kilt, and gold 
sandals. In the left hand was a long, gold walking- 
stick or staff, in the right a mace; and the left foot in 
each case was thrust forward as though the figures were 
walking, staff in hand, to meet one another. The eyes 
and eyebrows were inlaid, the latter in pure gold, and 
the bare flesh of the face, trunk, and limbs was painted 
with a dark substance like bitumen. Each figure stood 


76 TUTANKHAMEN 


upon an oblong pedestal of wood; and so narrow was 
the room that the front of each pedestal projected some 
inches beyond the sides of the blocked doorway, leaving 
a space between them of no more than four or five feet. 
Thus an ancient robber tampering with the sealed door- 
way would stand between these lifelike figures, and 
might well have expected them to step forward and close 
in on him, glaring at him with glassy eyes, and to strike 
him down with the heavy mace which each carried. 

It may have been for this reason that a linen gar- 
ment had been tossed over the arms and head of the 
figure on the right, and now hung there, fallen into 
decay and full of small holes. In many Egyptian tombs 
which have been plundered by robbers, the eyes of the 
statues or of the figures sculptured on the walls have 
been destroyed by the thieves, so that they should not 
see the evil work which was being done; and in this case 
I think one of the robbers must have flung this robe over 
the statue for a similar purpose. 

Between the two figures there were the remains of 
some reed mats, a basket, and three or four alabaster 
vases; and, nearby, there were two great bouquets of 
flowers and leaves, so well preserved that they looked as 
though but a few weeks had passed since they left the 
hands of the florist. In front of these there was an ex- 
quisite painted wooden casket with an arched lid, which 
ultimately proved to contain some of the King’s robes. 
On its four sides and on the lid were charming paintings 
in rich colours, executed in the manner of the finest 
miniatures, representing hunting scenes in the desert, 
in which the King in his chariot was shown pursuing 
ostriches, gazelle, wild asses, and hares. There were 
also decorative designs here, depicting the Pharaoh in 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 77 


the form of a human-headed lion, clawing at fallen 
Ethiopians and Asiatics. 

Close by there was a long narrow wooden box stand- 
ing on four legs: it was painted black and white, and, 
on being opened, was found to contain the King’s under- 
garments, several staves, many arrows, an ivory-handled 
whip, and a mace. 

The great mass of the funeral-furniture, however, 
was placed along the west wall of the chamber; and here 
the most imposing objects were three great funeral- 
couches, ablaze with gold, the first or northernmost 
having its sides made in the form of lions, the second 
in the form of cows, and the third in the form of hippo- 
potami. ‘These couches each consisted of four pieces 
jointed together, as it was later seen, by surprisingly 
modern-looking hooks and staples of bronze:—there was 
the bed itself; there were the two elongated creatures 
which formed the sides supporting the bed, as it were, 
slung between them; and, underneath, there was a 
square frame of woodwork on which the legs stood, this 
being to prevent the feet wearing holes in the stucco 
of which Egyptian floors were usually made. They 
were high, massive constructions, and were too short to 
carry an averaged sized man lying at full length: a fact 
which indicated that they were never used as beds, but 
were simply made for the purposes of the funeral, be- 
ing, in fact, biers rather than couches. 

A couch or bier with sides in the form of lions is 
often shown in tomb-paintings, with the coffin resting 
upon it; and the cow and hippopotamus are both ani- 
mals connected with the Underworld, as may be seen in 
the Papyrus of Ani, where both are represented stand- 
ing together at the foot of the hills of the necropolis. 


78 TUTANKHAMEN 


The cow was the form assumed by Hathor, goddess of 
these hills; and the hippopotamus, usually associated 
with the goddess Taurt, appears sometimes to have been 
connected, also, with Hathor. In the tomb of Horemheb 
we found fragments of three similar couches, with sides 
made in the form of hippos, lions and cows, and there 
are representations of three similar couches in the tomb 
of Sety I; and thus their use seems definitely to be 
mortuary rather than domestic. 

In the case of the lion-couch, the faces were close up 
to the north wall of the room, and could not at first be 
seen by the excavators; but the long, thin bodies covered 
with gold, and the tails which swept up from the foot of 
the bed in a wide curve, presented a striking sight. Just 
behind this stood the couch with the cow-sides. The two 
heads were each surmounted by high horns between 
which was the disk of the sun; the golden, elongated 
bodies were dotted all over with shamrock-shaped spots 
—the usual conventionalised treatment of the markings 
of the hide; and the tails were fashioned as before in a 
bold curve. Behind this again was the golden hippo- 
potamus-couch, the heads of the two creatures being 
modelled with startling realism. The mouths were open, 
showing teeth made of alabaster, and tongues of ivory; 
the ears were pricked up; and, at the other end, the 
stumpy tails projected stiffly towards the south wall of 
the chamber. 

The room was only just long enough to accommo- 
date these three couches, one behind the other; and it 
seemed rather as though they had been made exactly 
to fit into this space. On top of them, and under them, 
and around them, the other objects were stacked in 
baffling array. 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 79 


On the lion-couch there was a wooden bedstead, this 
being one actually used, or intended for use, and not an 
article of ritual significance; and here there were also a 
beautiful little chest, and various other objects, includ- 
ing some candlesticks made in the form of the ankh, or 
sign of life, one of them still holding the tow candle it- 
self. Fayence candlesticks in the form of the ankh were 
found in the tomb of Amenhotep IT and elsewhere; but 
the present examples were of more elaborate workman- 
ship and shape. Underneath this couch there were some 
charming caskets; a very beautiful and highly decorated 
armchair of wood inlaid with ivory; and four wonder- 
ful alabaster vases each with an amazing tracery of lotus 
and papyrus stems and flowers carried out with such 
consummate art that those who saw them exclaimed that 
they were the most superb objects of the kind ever 
fashioned in alabaster. 

On the middle couch another bed, a box of clothes, 
an armchair of wood and basket-work, and some deli- 
cately carved stools were heaped; and underneath it 
there was a great pile of thirty or more oval boxes, like 
immense EKaster-eggs, containing embalmed joints of 
beef, haunches of venison, trussed ducks, liver, and so 
forth—the food for the King’s spirit. In front of these 
boxes there was a beautiful stool made of ebony, with 
legs in the form of long-necked ducks’ heads, inlaid with 
ivory, and mounted in gold. The seat was also of carved 
ebony, inlaid with ivory to represent the spots of a 
leopard’s skin. Here also were a stool made of rushes 
and basket-work, and two caskets. On the lid of one of 
these the King’s necklace of glazed beads and pendants, 
was lying; and near it there was a twist of linen on to 


80 TUTANKHAMEN 


which a large number of blue fayence finger-rings had 
been drawn. 

Resting on the hippopotamus-couch there was, 
among other things, a large wooden box or trunk; and 
underneath the couch there was a magnificent throne or 
armchair,—one of the finest pieces in the whole amazing 
collection. It was made of wood covered with gold and 
silver; the arms were carved to represent winged ser- 
pents and were richly inlaid in blue enamel; and the legs 
were those of lions. On the back were figures of the 
King and Queen encrusted with semi-precious stones. 

At the south end of the room in a confused and 
gorgeous heap, there were three two-wheeled chariots 
which had been taken to pieces at the time of the funeral, 
but had been piled up by the robbers in a disordered 
mass. ‘The light bodies, or cars, were tumbled at dif- 
ferent angles, and four of the wooden wheels, decorated 
with gold, were stacked against the wall, while others 
Jay underneath the debris, together with the shafts and 
yokes. 

The largest of these chariots was a semi-circular 
structure, open at the back, made of wood covered with 
shining gold-leaf, and having delicately embossed deco- 
rations and exquisitely inlaid designs in carnelian, mala- 
chite, lapis-lazuli, vivid blue glaze, and alabaster—that 
is to say, browns, greens, blues, and whites, set in gold. 
At each corner was a small inlaid circle, enclosing the 
sacred eye, as though to suggest the all-seeing omnis- 
cience of the monarch as he drove through the streets of 
his capital. The inner surface of the car was of gold, 
with large embossed cartouches of Tutankhamen and 
his queen. The edges of the car and the handrail around 
the top were covered with red leather; and between this 

















A SKETCH OF THE GOLDEN SHRINE IN THE BURIAL CHAMBER 
OF TUTANKHAMEN 


A reconstruction by the author. 





THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN _ 81 


rail and the body were small carved figures of Semitic 
and Ethiopian captives. 

The other cars were somewhat smaller, and were in- 
scribed with the cartouches of the King, but not with 
those of the Queen. One of them was evidently a sort 
of triumphal chariot, for there were scenes upon it show- 
ing rows of captives roped together, while the human- 
headed lion, symbolic of the Pharaoh, had its claws in 
Egypt’s enemies. 

In front of these chariots there were some alabaster 
vases, and behind them there were other boxes and 
caskets and a little wooden shrine, plated with heavy 
sheet-gold, the doors of which were open, suggesting 
that a gold statuette had been removed from inside. 
Near this was a fine ushabti-figure of the King, in- 
scribed with four perpendicular lines of hieroglyphics. 

Here, also, there was an almost lifesize bust carved 
in wood and painted in a lifelike manner. The face and 
neck were coloured that brownish-yellow which, in the 
main periods of Egyptian history, was the conventional 
hue used to represent feminine skin, but which was 
sometimes employed also for male figures. On the head 
was a crown which might have been a shortened form 
either of the Pharaoh’s crown of Lower Egypt or of the 
crown first worn by Nefertiti, the mother of Tutankh- 
amen’s wife. The features of the face showed that soft, 
Janguorous expression which the artists of the period 
loved to portray, and the mouth was slightly smiling 
in a tired, rather bored manner. It was hard to say 
whether the face was that of a woman or a man, and the 
colour of the skin and the shape of the crown were those 
of either sex. ‘The lobes of the ears were pierced as 
though to receive jewels; but this, again, did not de- 


82 TUTANKHAMEN 


termine the sex, earrings being worn by both men and 
women. The body was cut off at the waist, and was 
covered with a tight-fitting white robe which revealed 
a figure more like a man’s than a woman’s. Only the 
stumps of the arms were shown, as in the case of a bust. 

This curious figure was obviously a sculptor’s por- 
trait-bust, and called to mind other such busts known in 
Egyptian art—those of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty for 
instance, found at Sakkara and elsewhere, which in each 
case have the top of the crown, and the arms, cut off in 
like manner. It was thus, a portrait-bust which had 
been placed in the tomb in conformity to some ancient 
custom; but it was hard to decide whether it represented 
the King himself, or his wife, who is known to have been 
young and childless, and whose figure, therefore, might 
have had no pronounced feminine lines. 

The strange and beautiful face of this figure, with 
its large, soft eyes, looked out at the excavators from 
amidst the shadows cast by an overturned chariot, and 
held their admiring gaze for some time. But as they 
stooped to examine it, their attention was attracted by 
a hole in the wall under the legs of the hippopotamus- 
couch, close by. This hole proved to be an aperture 
made by the robbers in the sealed doorway of a small 
room leading out of the main chamber; and on holding 
the electric lamp close to the opening they found the 
chamber within to be crammed with glistening objects, 
heaped up one upon another. At the time of writing 
this chamber has not yet been examined, nor the mass of 
obviously wonderful antiquities in it touched. 

Such was the general appearance of the tomb as the 
excavators saw it; and when they climbed back into the 
entrance passage, and so went up once more into the 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN — 83 


light of the sun, they brought with them the memory of 
an experience such as no other living man has enjoyed. 
No great royal tomb in anything like an intact condition 
has ever been discovered before. ‘The most spectacular 
“find” previous to this was that of the tomb of Yuaa and 
Tuau, great grand-parents of Tutankhamen’s wife: * 
in this case the tomb was found to be full of funeral- 
furniture, but though the objects were very fine, they 
were neither so numerous nor so magnificent as those in 
Tutankhamen’s sepulchre. 

A close examination of the new discovery, during 
the next day or two, revealed still more wonders. There 
were some superb sticks or staves, one of ebony with a 
golden handle carved in the form of the head of an 
Asiatic, and another decorated with an exquisite pattern 
of beetle’s wings. In one of the boxes there was an in- 
laid gold buckle made in the form of the King’s car- 
touche: the first sign, Ra, being of carnelian; the second 
sign, Kheper, of chased gold; the third, the three plural 
strokes, of lapis-lazuli; and the fourth, Neb, of green 
enamel. In another box the excavators found a pair of 
wonderful sandals, of which the part which passed over 
the instep was exquisitely designed in inlaid gold: a 
lotus flower in the middle, with a duck’s head and a 
cluster of little rosette-like flowers on either side, all 
inlaid in semi-precious stones. Elsewhere, there were 
two boomerangs of gold and fayence; many utensils in 
beautiful blue glaze; gold-covered sticks; all manner of 
robes, unfortunately in a very fragile condition; and so 
forth. 

One little box contained a lock of plaited hair, such 
as youths wore at the side of their head before they 

* Described in my Glory of the Pharaohs. 


84 TUTANKHAMEN 


reached manhood; and on this box there was an inscrip- 
tion, reading: “The sidelock which his Majesty wore 
when he was a boy.” In another box there was a little 
hood or cap, with a flap hanging down to protect the 
neck from the sun. It was made of fine linen covered 
with gold sequins, and was of a size to fit a young child. 
A child’s gauntlet-glove of linen was also found, which 
was startling in its modern appearance. Both the hood 
and the glove may have belonged to the King when he 
was a child, or perhaps to his girl-wife, the little daugh- 
ter of Akhnaton, who became queen when she was but 
nine years of age. There was also another pair of gloves 
lined with fleece. 

On the floor of the chamber there had been baskets 
of grain, but most of it had been upset by the robbers 
and was lying about in small heaps. In one of the boxes 
there were several squares of folded material which 
looked like papyrus, and at first the excavators thought 
that these might be letters or documents of some kind; 
but on examination they proved to be simply folded 
napkins. 

Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter were at first be- 
wildered by the extent of their discovery, and their 
anxieties, both as to the handling of the objects and as 
to their safety from robbery, weighed heavily upon 
them. The first thing to be done was to take photo- 
graphs of the interior of the tomb; but their efforts in 
this regard met with failure, and, indeed, they risked a 
conflagration by using flash-light. Electric light had 
then to be installed in the tomb, the current being taken 
from the engine which supplied the light in the neigh- 
bouring show-tombs. A burglar-proof doorway had to 
be affixed to the entrance of the sepulchre, and arrange- 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN — 85 


ments had to be made for a guard of soldiers to remain 
stationed at the mouth, night and day. 

It was decided that the work would have to be 
undertaken in the following manner. First, these ob- 
jects in the front room would have to be treated one by 
one with chemical preservatives, and carried across the 
valley to one of the large, open tombs which would serve 
as a workshop. Then, when the room was clear, the 
sealed doorway into the burial-chamber could be opened; 
and later on the mass of objects in the store-chamber 
leading from the first room could be tackled. 

Mr. Carter, and his assistant, Mr. Callender, could 
not do the work by themselves; and the director of the 
neighbouring excavations of the Metropolitan Museum 
of New York very kindly, therefore, placed at Lord 
Carnarvon’s disposal two English members of his staff, 
Mr. Mace and Mr. Burton, the former an expert in 
handling fragile objects, and the latter a first-rate 
photographer. The services of Mr. Lucas, an English 
chemical analyst, were also engaged to deal with the 
preservative treatment of the objects. The work being 
thus arranged, Lord Carnarvon returned to England, 
promising to come back to see the opening of the sealed 
burial-chamber, some time in February. 

A few weeks later the long business of bringing up 
the objects began, and daily the sight-seers from the 
hotels and river-steamers at Luxor gathered at the 
mouth of the tomb to see the transportation of these 
wonderful antiquities to the workshop. I arrived at 
about this time; and for several weeks I rode up to the 
Valley almost every day to watch the progress of the 
work, going down into the tomb, by the courtesy of 
the Egyptian Government, on two or three occasions. 


86 TUTANKHAMEN 


It was an extraordinary experience to leave the daz- 
zling sunshine and to descend into the stillness of the 
rock-hewn passage which led down into the first cham- 
ber. Suddenly the light and warmth of the sun were 
gone, the sounds of the living world outside were 
silenced, and one passed in a moment from the Twen- 
tieth Century after Christ into the Fourteenth Century 
before Christ, from the strident active present into the 
mute and paralysed past. It was as though the mind 
had taken a strange backward leap, and had swept 
swiftly across the centuries like the eye of a god. 

But equally dramatic it was to sit on the wall of the 
parapet above the mouth of the tomb, and to watch the 
pieces being brought up from the depths into the sun- 
light which they had not seen for nearly thirty-three 
centuries. Perhaps the most spectacular arrivals were 
those of the three great ceremonial couches, described 
above, each of which came up in four sections—first the 
actual bed; then the two elongated creatures which 
formed the sides; and lastly the rectangular frame of 
wood on which the legs stood. 

In the case of the lion-couch the heads of both were 
sculptured with great artistic feeling and boldness, the 
gaunt cheeks, the hungry eyes, the pricked-up ears, and 
the conventionalised yet ragged mane conveying an in- 
stant and vivid impression of a sort of ferocious power. 
The legs were thin and the clawed feet large and clumsy 
like those of a big puppy; and the tail swept over the 
back in a bold and spirited curve which was obtained by 
using the flexible wood of the vine, as we observed in 
the case of the fragments of a similar hon-couch found 
in the tomb of Horemheb. ‘The dramatic effect of the 
arrival of these two lions up from the Underworld was 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN — 87 


perhaps somewhat lessened by the fact that Mr. Carter 
brought them out tail first in each case, but presently he 
considerately turned them round, so that their haggard 
golden faces stared into the noonday sun. 

The second couch, that with the Hathor cow on 
either side, was brought up on another day; and the ar- 
rival of these two bizarre creatures, whose expression 
was one of astonishment as they emerged into the sun- 
shine after their thousands of years in the darkness, 
caused a murmur of excitement amongst the assembled 
sight-seers. ‘The expression on the faces of the hippo- 
potami which formed the sides of the third couch, was, on 
the other hand, one of frank laughter when they came 
up from the tomb into the daylight and saw the strange 
company of tourists gathered to greet them; but their 
ears were pricked up as though they were alert and 
listening—as indeed they well might be after nearly 
thirty-three centuries of silence. 

Day after day the crowd which assembled to watch 
the removal of the different objects increased in size. 
Now it was a glistening chariot that was taken to the 
workshop; now a gilded chest or casket, and now a tray 
bearing bouquets of flowers or a collection of odds and 
ends. As each of these loads was carried along the 
valley, soldiers armed with rifles marched behind it, and 
pressmen and visitors ran by the side clicking their 
cameras and scribbling their notes. Thus, almost daily, 
there was some little triumphal procession to the work- 
shop to delight the spectators; and the interest was 
maintained all through January and the first half of 
February. 

At last the preparations for the opening of the 
burial-chamber were complete, and nothing remained 


88 TUTANKHAMEN 


in the first room except the two statues which stood on 
either side of the sealed doorway. On Friday, February 
16th, just before half past one, when the deserted valley 
was ablaze with the mid-day sun, and a police sentry 
yawned at his post, the little party of those who were 
to make the opening, silently filed down into the hollow 
in which is the mouth of the tomb. ‘The opening of the 
first chamber had taken place in comparative privacy; 
but now at the unsealing of this inner doorway there 
were about twenty persons present altogether, con- 
sisting of the excavators, and a number of distinguished 
individuals, including two or three Egyptians. 

Down they went into the pool of blue shade, like the 
Forty Thieves descending into the magic cavern; and 
silently they removed their coats and hats in preparation 
for their adventure. There was something very solemn, 
and even tragic, in this awakening of the once great king 
now when his empire was long fallen to pieces and his 
glory departed; and as I took my place at the mouth 
of the tomb I felt, if I may say so without affectation, 
a sense of deep sadness weighing upon me. 

The wind suddenly got up as the party went down 
the steps, and it blew the hot, white dust about, sending 
it up into the air in angry little scurries. One might 
almost have thought it to be connected in some way with 
the spirit of the dead Pharaoh, petulant and alarmed at 
being disturbed, or perhaps annoyed at the jokes and 
laughter of some of the resurrection men, who had aban- 
doned their silence and had become jocular as they went 
into the sepulchre. A number of cane chairs had been 
taken down into the bare first room, so that the party 
could watch while the sealed wall was broken down; and 
Lord Carnarvon, perhaps somewhat overwrought by 





THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN — 89 


the excitement of the moment, made the jesting remark 
that they were going to give a concert down there in the 
sepulchre. His words, though of little moment, dis- 
tressed me, for I was absorbed, as it were, in my own 
thoughts, which were anything but jocular; and I turned 
to the man next to me, and said: “If he goes down in 
that spirit, I give him six weeks to live.” I do not know 
why I said it: it was one of those curious prophetic utter- 
ances which seem to issue, without definite intention, 
from the sub-conscious brain; but in six weeks’ time, 
when Lord Carnarvon was on his deathbed, the man 
to whom I had addressed the words reminded me of 
them. 

The proceedings were opened with a speech by Mr. 
Howard Carter and a few remarks by Lord Carnarvon, 
at the end of which there was some nervous applause 
from the scantily clad company seated upon the chairs, 
who were already perspiring in the heat of the small 
chamber, lit by the glaring arc-lamps. Then a hammer 
and chisel were produced, and the wall which had tan- 
talised us all for so long was cautiously attacked. 

This was at 1.50 p.m., and as the first blows rever- 
berated through the room, a thrill shot through me like 
something that burnt in my veins, and I seemed to see 
the Pharaoh in the darkness on the other side of the 
doorway suddenly wake from his long slumber, and 
listen. It was the ancient Egyptian belief that the 
sleep of Death lasted three thousand years, and thus the 
time was up, and it might well have seemed to him that 
the day of resurrection was come, and that the jackal- 
headed Anubis had arrived at long last to carry his soul 
to the Judgment Hall of Osiris, there to weigh his 


90 TUTANKHAMEN 


heart in the balances against the symbol of Truth, that 
he might be vindicated or found wanting. 

Tap-tap went the hammer, and outside in the sun- 
light another gust of wind, wailing through the valley, 
violently spun the dust into the air. Tap-tap: and as 
the first stone of the wall which blocked the doorway 
was displaced, I felt with peculiar intensity that there 
must be some message to give to the Pharaoh, if only I 
could find it, some word of comfort to fortify him at this 
solemn hour of his summons from the sleep of oblivion. 

Perhaps it was because I deem him to be the Pharaoh 
of the Exodus, or perhaps it was the strange event of 
the disenjtombing itself, which directed my groping 
thoughts; but somehow, of a sudden I knew that the 
message to be given to the awakening dead was that 
the Ancient of Days was still Lord of men’s lives, that 
the passage of the years which had changed so much had 
left Him still the unchanged hope of the world. I sup- 
pose my Egyptological colleagues will call me a senti- 
mentalist; but nevertheless I will admit that I was over- 
whelmingly conscious of the presence of God at that 
hour, and with all my heart I wanted the awaking King 
to know that he was safe in His hands, and that there 
was nothing to fear. 

It was at 3.30 p.m., that the doorway was sufficiently 
cleared to permit of an entrance; and now through the 
aperture a huge golden shrine could be seen gleaming 
in the light of the arc-lamps which were directed upon it. 
This shrine, which stood upon a stone floor three feet 
lower than the floor of the outer room, seemed to fill 
almost the entire inner chamber, only a narrow passage- 
way being open upon the front or east side of it; and 
down into this passage the excavators prepared to 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN _ 91 


squeeze themselves. There was silence now in the tomb; 
and, in the valley outside, the wind had dropped as sud- 
denly as it had arisen, so that there, too, all was still. 

At this moment a hawk, in ancient days the emblem 
of the royal house, came swiftly over the hills from the 
direction of Thebes, and hovered above the mouth of 
the tomb, poised in mid-air against the blue of the sky. 
Then it sailed away, down the valley and into the west. 

Inside the chamber the company assembled were 
staring with wide eyes at that portion of the great 
shrine which could be seen standing close up to the inner 
side of the partition wall, beyond the now open door- 
way. It was a huge box-like structure, made of wood 
covered with gold-leaf, and having a very beautiful blue- 
green porcelain inlaid between the gilded symbols which 
formed the decoration. Along the side of the curved lid 
a winged serpent was represented, whose coils wound 
away into the darkness; and beneath this there was a 
broad golden band on which was an inscription which 
read, so far as I could see it:—“All the gods who are in 
the Underworld declare that the King, the Lord of the 
Two Lands of Egypt, Lord of the Creations of the 
sun, Son of Ra, who loves him, Tutankhamen, is .. .” 
The rest of the declaration was lost in the darkness, 
owing to the closeness of the shrine to the wall. 

Lower down, and immediately opposite the aperture 
in the wall, two magical eyes were engraved on the side 
of the shrine. These are often seen on sarcophagi, and 
were represented there so that the dead man might look 
out through them from his prison inside, and see all that 
went on; and if the ancient magic be still potent, Tut- 
ankhamen must have been watching every movement of 
his disturbers as they broke down the sealed wall. 


92 TUTANKHAMEN 


Mr. Carter, Lord Carnarvon, and, after a while, one 
or two others, now squeezed themselves round to the 
front of the shrine; and here they found two great 
golden doors with heavy bronze hinges, closed and 
bolted. In the narrow passage-way there was only just 
room to open these doors in order to see what was inside 
the shrine; and it was with difficulty that Mr. Carter, 
working in the intense heat and airlessness of this 
cramped space, managed to force them open. 

Inside there proved to be another and smaller golden 
shrine of a similar kind, the doors of which were bolted 
and sealed with the unbroken seals of the royal necrop- 
olis. Over this inner shrine a pall of fine linen spangled - 
with gold was thrown; and I recalled that in the intact 
tomb found by Professor Schiaparelli some years ago at 
Dér el-Medineh a linen pall, but of a plainer kind, was 
lying over the sarcophagus in just this manner. 'The 
inside surfaces of the outer shrine were covered with 
religious texts and decoration; but little of this could 
now be seen. 

No attempt was made to open these inner doors, for 
it was clear that inside them there would probably be 
found a sealed sarcophagus, within which there would 
be an outer and an inner coffin; and only after all these 
had been opened would the mummy of the Pharaoh be 
reached. It was at once realised that the taking to 
pieces of the outer shrines (which had evidently been 
put together after the body had been laid to rest) 
and the removal of the lids of the sarcophagus and 
coffins would be the work of months; and thus, though 
one might imagine the Pharaoh’s rest to have been dis- 
turbed by the noise of the breaking down of the en- 
trance to the burial-chamber, by the creaking of the 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN _ 93 


hinges of the golden doors of the shrine as they swung 
open for the first time for nearly thirty-three centuries, 
and by the clattering footfalls and excited voices of the 
excavators, the hour of his actual awakening was seen 
at once to be postponed for many months or even years. 
As the great doors of the shrine were closed and bolted 
once more, it was as though he had been bidden to sleep 
on yet a little while, and to fear nothing. 

_ The excavators now turned their attention to the 
walls of the chamber in which the shrine stands. Upon 
them there were many paintings and inscriptions of a 
religious character, but the narrow space between the 
shrine and rock-hewn sides of the room only permitted 
the wall which faces the golden doors to be seen with 
clearness. Here there was a large painted scene repre- 
senting the mummy of the King resting on a funeral 
barque, which was being drawn upon a sledge by priests 
or nobles, each wearing a white band around his head. 
Representations of a funeral such as this are common in 
the tombs of the nobles, but are unique in a Theban 
king’s tomb; but we must remember that Tutankhamen 
was the first king to be buried after the Tell-el-Amarna 
heresy, which had swept all traditions aside, and that 
the scenes and texts from the Book of the Dead which 
are to be found on the walls of earlier royal tombs were 
not in use at this epoch. 

In the dim light at the other end of the chamber be- 
hind the back of the shrine, one could just see a painting 
on the wall, representing one of the sacred apes of the 
sun, like those which are to be seen in the tomb of Ay, 
the Pharaoh who succeeded Tutankhamen. Both this 
and the funeral scene mentioned above were somewhat 
roughly painted, and had little artistic merit. 


94 TUTANKHAMEN 


Leaning up against the wall at the back of the shrine 
there was a gold-covered standard of the jackal-god who 
was called “Opener of the Paths” for the dead. I could 
not see it closely, but it was certainly unique. On the 
floor, at the side of the shrine, lay seven golden oars, 
finely decorated, these having a significance connected 
with the belief that the soul of a dead king sailed like 
the sun-god across the heavens in a golden barque. Oars 
of this kind have been found in other royal tombs. 

On the right side of the passage in front of the shrine 
in which the Pharaoh lies, there was, just beyond the 
golden doors, an opening hewn in the rock, which led 
into a small chamber; and, looking into this, the ex- 
cavators beheld a sight indescribable in its magnificence. 
Here a marvellous collection of funeral-furniture was 
seen, and the electric lights directed upon it revealed 
objects of shining gold and bright colours piled up 
almost to the ceiling. 

Near the entrance was a figure in black and gold, 
representing the jackal-god Anubis resting upon a 
sledge. Similar figures have been found in other royal 
tombs, but not, like this, in perfect condition. Behind 
it was the head of an ox, carved in wood, somewhat simi- 
lar to one found in the tomb of Amenhotep II. On the 
right side of the little chamber were great numbers of 
boxes of various shapes and sizes, some of them gilded 
and coloured, but most of them painted black with bitu- 
men. ‘These were all sealed, and their contents could 
not yet be ascertained; but, judging by those found 
in the tomb of Yuaa, they contain ushabti-figures, vases, 
religious symbols, and possibly papyrus and jewellery. 
Here, too, there was a shrine-like chest with doors 
standing open; and inside there were two golden 


—— 


THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 95 


statuettes of the King, one wearing the crown of Upper 
Egypt, the other of Lower Egypt, and each standing on 
a leopard beautifully carved. The fragments of similar 
figures were found in the tomb of Amenhotep IT. 

At the end of this chamber there was a most beautiful 
gilded chest, surmounted by rows of royal cobras. At 
its four sides were exquisite figures of four goddesses, 
their faces turned towards the chest, and their arms 
extended as though pleading to be left unharmed. Their 
figures were slight and childlike, and golden robes or 
shawls were draped over their outstretched arms. This 
wonderful chest probably contains the four “canopic” 
jars, in which the internal organs taken by the em- 
balmers from the body of the King, are separately pre- 
served. 

Behind it more boxes were stacked; and to one side 
there was another group of caskets, made of ivory and 
wood, some inlaid with enamels and semi-precious 
stones, others decorated with gold. Here, too, was yet 
another chariot, and near it there were models of sacred 
boats. 

Amongst the mass of other objects, two alabaster 
vases of exquisite workmanship must be mentioned. 
One of these, made of beautiful translucent stone, was 
in the form of a chalice with two delicately curved lotus 
stems projecting from the sides and supporting two 
flower-like cups. There was some exquisitely carved 
open-work around the base and sides of the chalice. 
Another object worthy of note was a very fine scarab, 
perhaps the most beautiful ever found. 

The number and richness of these objects were over- 
whelming, and it was at once apparent that it would 
take three or four seasons’ work to deal with them. One 


96 TUTANKHAMEN 


season will be occupied in removing the as yet untouched 
mass of objects stacked in the chamber which leads from 
the first room; another season, or perhaps two, will be 
spent in taking the great shrine to pieces and opening 
the sarcophagus and coffins; and yet another will be 
required for the handling of the funeral-furniture in this 
new store-chamber. And, when all these articles have 
been taken from the tomb, there will remain a couple of 
years’ work in their cataloguing and photographing. 
Thus the story has but begun; and year by year there 
will be fresh wonders to relate. 

It was already 4.30 p.m. when the excavators’ party 
left the tomb and climbed up the stairs into the daylight. 
Lord Carnarvon, always a delicate man, looked pale and 
exhausted as he came up out of the depths; and on the 
face of all those who had been present there were marks 
of fatigue and over-excitement. It had been a day of 
days; and as I drove down the long desert road back to 
Luxor in the dim light my thoughts were all of that 
royal sleep which had been disturbed, and of the little- 
ness of man’s life, and of the mightiness of that Power 
in Whose eyes a thousand ages are as the twinkling of 
an eye. 

On the next day, Saturday 17th, little work was 
done; and on Sunday 18th, there was the official cere- 
mony of the opening to be faced. This ceremony was 
very different in character from that of the previous 
Friday. 'Then it had been to most of us an eerie and 
tense business; but on Sunday it was a noisy affair. 
The valley was crowded at an early hour, and at mid- 
morning the Dowager-Sultana arrived with her ladies, 

There were soldiers springing to the salute; officers 
with clanking swords shouting orders; kinema operators 























EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GOLDWORK 
The gold ear ornaments of Sety the Second, found near the TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 


serie 





THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN 97 


running up the hillsides, while native boys climbed be- 
hind them carrying their apparatus; crowds of Euro- 
pean and American visitors in every kind of costume 
from equestrian to regatta; Egyptian notables looking 
very hot in western clothes and red tarboushes; tall 
black eunuchs in long frock-coats; dragomans in bright 
silken robes; and so forth. 

The Sultana was taken into the tomb to look over 
the broken-down barrier-wall into the chamber beyond; 
and everybody photographed her as she went in and 
again as she came out, while the soldiers saluted and the 
dogs barked. 

After she had gone her royal way with mounted 
policemen trotting behind her, half smothered in dust, 
various other important personages were taken down 
into the tomb. Then came picnic luncheons; and pres- 
ently the Queen of the Belgians and Field-Marshal 
Lord Allenby, the British High Commissioner of 
Egypt, arrived; and once more the soldiers lined up 
and cameras clicked. It was a gay and animated scene. 

As for myself I sat for the greater part of the day 
upon a stone, like an old owl, brooding upon the strange- 
ness of life, and, as on the Friday, my heart was heavy 
and my head full of dreams of other days. The opening 
of this tomb still presented itself to my mind as the 
disturbing of a sleeping man, and the forcing of some 
sort of ordeal upon him; and my feeling for him was 
one of intense pity. It was as though he were somebody 
who had been left behind by mistake after all his friends 
and loved ones had become dust; someone who was alone 
in an alien age, and who was being awakened to face 
thousands of staring eyes not filled with reverence but 
with curiosity, 


98 TUTANKHAMEN 


But when the day’s events were over, and all the 
throng departed, I went over to the mouth of the tomb 
and stood there for a while in the gathering dusk. There 
was not a sound in the valley except the distant and sub- 
dued murmur of the voices of the watchmen and the 
police who were crouched around the evening fire, the 
smoke of which went up into the still air in a thin line. 
The haze of approaching night lay over the cliffs and 
hillsides around, enfolding them in a soft and muted 
peace. 

There came into my mind the words of Neferhotep, 
a minstrel who had lived in the time of Tutankhamen; 
and in the stillness of the twilight it was almost as 
though they were coming up to me out of the tomb. “I 
have heard those songs that are inscribed in the ancient 
sepulchre, and what they tell in praise of life on earth 
and belittling the region of the dead. Yet wherefore do 
they this in regard to the land of Eternity, the just and 
the fair, where fear is not? Wrangling is its abhorrence, 
nor does any there gird himself against his fellow. ‘That 
land, free of enemies!—all our kinsmen from the earliest 
day of time rest within it. The children of millions of 
millions come thither, every one. For none may tarry in 
the land of Egypt; none there is that passeth not thither. 
The span of our earthly deeds is as a dream; but fair is 
the welcome that awaits him who has reached the hills 
of the West.” 


CHAPTER IV 


TUTANKHAMEN: THE HISTORICAL 
PROBLEMS 


4 he enormous number of objects found in the 


tomb of Tutankhamen * have advanced our 
knowledge of ancient Egyptian arts and crafts 
in an unexpected and quite astonishing manner; but his- 
torically the discovery has left us as we were. So far 
no important new facts have been forthcoming to add 
to the information we already possess in regard to this 
most interesting period; but the great “find” has, of. 
course, focussed our minds upon this particular epoch 
of Egyptian history, and thus certain avenues of spec- 
ulation have been opened up, which might otherwise 
have remained unnoticed for yet some years to come. 
I propose here to direct the reader’s attention to some 
of these unexplored lines of thought, with the purpose 
more of stimulating discussion than of reaching definite 
conclusions. When the objects in the inner chambers 
are examined, and when the body has been taken from 
its sarcophagus, and studied by anatomical experts, we 
may come upon various facts which will substantiate or 
refute these theories and suggestions. 
The history of Tutankhamen rises out of that of 
Akhnaton, the famous “heretic king,” whose reign from 
B.C. 1375 to 1358 stands as the first great landmark 


* Amen, Amon, Amun, Ammon are all readings of the same name, the 
pronunciation being probably Amoon. 


99 


100 TUTANKHAMEN 


in the higher development of the human brain; and 
we must therefore begin by considering this period. 
Akhnaton was the son of Amenhotep III and Queen 
Tiy, in whose life-time Egypt was at the height of her 
power, and was mistress of the chief parts of the civil- 
ised world. The wealth of Thebes, the capital of this 
empire, was enormous, and life had reached a condition 
of luxury which has never been surpassed in the East. 
At this time, however, the whole country was under 
the heel of the priesthood of Amon, the proudest and 
most conservative community which conservative Egypt 
ever produced. It demanded implicit obedience to its 
strict and ancient conventions, and the worship of the 
host of gods, of which Amon was king, had become a 
complicated and exacting business, as intellectually low 
and primitive as its state of organisation was high and 
pompous. As is so often the case, a luxurious civilisa- 
tion had brought with it a great increase in the outward 
ceremonial and inward emptiness of the state religion; 
and gross superstition was everywhere to be seen. 
Then the young Pharaoh Akhnaton, a mere boy, 
filled with an overwhelming zeal for truth and sincerity, 
set himself to overthrow the entire structure. As soon 
as he came to the throne he began to direct men’s eyes 
to the worship of the true God, almost as we understand 
Him now, under the name of Aton, a deity having very 
close connections with Ra-Horakhti, the sun-god of 
Heliopolis. Aton, he declared, was the intangible, 
formless, omnipresent Father of mankind, the con- 
troller of that remote, yet proximate Force, which, for 
want of a better definition, was called the life-giving 
energy behind the power of the sun. He was the tender 
and merciful “Father and Mother of all that He had 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 101 


made,” the ‘Lord of love,” the “Comforter of them that 
weep,” in Whose eyes even the chicken in the egg and 
the smallest fish in the river were creatures to be watched 
over and made to rejoice in His love. Akhnaton called 
upon his followers to search for Him not in the con- 
fusion of battle nor behind the smoke of sacrifices but 
amidst the everyday scenes and events of nature, and in 
the heart’s happiness. The sunlight being His most 
obvious manifestation on earth, sun-worship was an 
outward aspect of the new religion; but Akhnaton again 
and again explained that God was not the sun itself but 
the “Master of the Sun,” the energy which sustained 
it and all creation. 

In the fourth year of his reign, abandoning the city 
of Thebes with its many temples dedicated to Amon 
and the old gods, the young King founded a new capital 
at Tell-el-Amarna, which he called the “Horizon of 
Aton.” Here a beautiful palace was prepared for him; 
a splendid temple dedicated to Aton was set up amidst 
an extensive garden; fine streets were laid out; and in 
the neighbouring hills the tombs and mortuary chapels 
for himself and his nobles were cut out of the rock. In 
this city of his dream he preached his astonishingly en- 
lightened monotheism, a doctrine of truth and love, 
moving about freely amongst his people and personally 
directing the carrying out of his plans. He himself, so 
the records say, originated the new canons of art of 
which such exquisite examples have come down to us; 
he himself taught his people to walk in the way of truth; 
and he himself wrote the religious hymns, amongst 
which there is the undoubted original of our 104th 
Psalm, many of the verses of which in the hieroglyphic 


102 TUTANKHAMEN 


script are almost word for word those of the Hebrew 
version. 

The foremost law of Akhnaton’s religion was iden- 
tical with the first Mosaic commandment, namely that 
no graven image either of the true God or of the older 
gods was to be made or worshipped; and towards the 
end of his reign he even went so far as to cause the word 
“gods” to be cut out of the religious inscriptions upon 
the old temples. In particular he issued orders that the 
name of Amon, the arch-enemy of his new religion, 
should be erased from every inscription in the land: a 
drastic measure which was carried out in the minutest 
manner, so that the ruins to-day everywhere bear traces 
of these erasures, and even tombs were opened in search 
of the hated name. 

His doctrines were of an entirely pacific character. 
He did not believe that warfare or military domination 
over other countries was compatible with his creed of 
universal gentleness and love; and when revolts broke 
out in his Syrian provinces he seems to have refused to 
fight. There is no more pathetic page of history than 
that which tells of his soldiers’ desperate efforts to hold 
the nations of the empire faithful to their King. Some 
of the letters imploring him to take action were discov- 
ered at Tell-el-Amarna some years ago, and the tragedy 
of the fall of the Egyptian power in Syria can still be 
read. Akhnaton sacrificed all glory and dominion to 
his ideals, and before his short life drew to a close he had 
lost the fruits of all the conquests of his fathers. He 
reigned seventeen years, thirteen of which were spent at 
Tell-el-Amarna, and his age at his death was thirty 
years at most. 

His queen, Nefertiti, bore him seven daughters, but 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 103 


no son. The eldest of these daughters, Merytaton, he 
married to a noble whom, in the last years of his reign, 
he associated on the throne with him, under the name of 
Smenkhkara. The second daughter, Meketaton, died 
as a child; the third, Ankhsenpeaton, was afterwards 
married to Tutankhamen; the fourth, Neferneferuaton, 
was married to the son of the King of Babylon; and the 
remaining three, of whom we know practically nothing, 
were still very young when their father died, the last 
having been born some two years before his death. 

We know nothing as to the origin or as to the fate 
of Smenkhkara. He seems to have been one of Akhna- 
ton’s devoted followers, and he generally wrote after 
his name the words “Beloved of Akhnaton,” indicating 
that the King’s love for him was his title to the throne. 
He disappeared from the scene at about the same time 
as Akhnaton, and his place was taken by Tutankhamen 
or Tutankhaton as he was called at his accession. 

I will suggest the following possibility as to Tut- 
ankhamen’s origin. During the reign of Akhnaton the 
most important courtier was a certain Tutu, who held 
the position of court chamberlain. As in the case of 
all important nobles of the period, a tomb was prepared 
for him, during his lifetime, in the hills of Tell-el- 
Améarna; and from the scenes and inscription upon its 
walls a considerable amount of information regarding 
his career can be gleaned. He explains that he was the 
“supreme mouth-piece of the entire land,” and that his 
particular duty was to introduce foreign envoys and 
ambassadors to the court. “My voice,” he says, “was 
not loud in the King’s house, nor my walk swaggering 
in the palace. The King rose early every day to teach 
me, because of my zeal in carrying out his teaching.” 


104 TUTANKHAMEN 


And he adds that he grew wealthy, thanks to the bounty 
of his master, and received many rewards from him. 

When this tomb was made for him he appears to 
have been unmarried or a widower, for there is no men- 
tion of a wife; nor are his parents referred to. In the 
Tell-el-Am4rna letters we find him called Dudu, which 
is evidently the same name as Tutu, and we see that 
he was the close friend of a certain Amorite prince, 
named Aziru, who ultimately proved traitorous to 
Akhnaton and joined the rebels in Syria. Aziru ad- 
dresses Tutu as “My lord” or “My father,” which sug- 
gests that Tutu was an elderly man. As his particular 
work was that of introducing foreigners to the court it 
may be that he was an Asiatic himself. The name Tutu 
or Dudu is probably a form of Daoud, which we call 
David. 

Now, since there was no male heir to the throne, it 
is highly probable that the most important and powerful 
man in the kingdom would seize it on the death of 
Akhnaton; and when we recollect that the most power- 
ful man at the time was named Tutu, and that the new 
king was named Tutankhaton, “Tut, living in Aton,” 
one is much tempted to identify “T'wtu,’ the court 
chamberlain, with “T'wt-living-in-Aton,” the Pharaoh.* 
We know, as mentioned above, that Tutu had no wife 
while he was chamberlain; we know that Tutankhaton, 
the king, was married to Akhnaton’s daughter, Ankh- 
senpeaton; and thus we are justified in surmising that 
Tutu was either married to the princess towards the 
close of Akhnaton’s lifetime and hence had a claim, 
through her, to the throne, just as had Smenkhkara, 


* The word Tut must not be pronounced as though it rhymed with but: 
it more probably rhymes with rude, being, in fact, indistinguishable from 
Daoud, the native form of David. 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 105 


the other son-in-law of the King, or that Tutu married 
her at Akhnaton’s death to legitimise his accession. 

When the body now lying in the newly discovered 
tomb is examined we shall probably learn the age of this 
king at his death. The so-called “dummy” found in the 
tomb represents a youthful face, and if it be a portrait 
of the King it would certainly indicate that he was but 
a lad; but, on the other hand, the Cairo statue is that 
of amuch older man, If an examination of the mummy 
shows him to have been a young man, then his identifica- 
tion with Tutu will become improbable, unless we are 
to suppose that the court chamberlain of a youthful 
king could be also but a youth, and that the term “My 
father” used towards him by Aziru is only a meaningless 
title of honour; but if the mummy is found to be that 
of a middle-aged or elderly man, I think we may safely 
make the identification. The suggestion that he was 
the son of Akhnaton by a concubine has no fact to sup- 
port it. In a certain inscription Amenhotep IIT is 
referred to as his “father,” but the word here probably 
means “predecessor.” For the present the problem 
must remain in abeyance. 

Tutankhaton did not remain long at Tell-el- 
Amarna. The priesthood of Amon had once more 
raised its head at the death of Akhnaton, and, finding 
the country ready to revolt against the mismanagement 
of affairs by the Tell-el-Amarna government, it per- 
suaded the new king to abandon his late father-in-law’s 
Utopian city and.to bring the court back to Thebes. 
The King realised that a compromise between Amon 
and Aton was the only way to save the country; and 
therefore, changing his name to Tutankhamen, and his 
wife’s to Ankhsenamen, he returned to the ancient me- 


106 TUTANKHAMEN 


tropolis, leaving Akhnaton’s temples and palaces, villas 
and gardens, to become the haunt of jackals and the 
home of the owls. Akhnaton’s body was carried back 
to the old capital, and was laid to rest in the Valley of 
the Tombs of the Kings, in the tomb of his mother, 
Queen Tiy; and, a few yards from it, Tutankhamen 
caused a tomb to be prepared for himself. 

He celebrated his return to Thebes by building the 
famous colonnade in the Temple of Luxor, afterwards 
appropriated by the Pharaoh Horemheb. This colon- 
nade is the most imposing part of the temple, and was 
at that time about the biggest building of its kind in 
Egypt. He caused its walls to be decorated with scenes 
showing the wild enthusiasm of the populace at his 
return and the first celebration of the great Amon fes- 
tival; and the modern visitor may still see representa- 
tions of the people dancing, beating drums, and blowing 
trumpets, in their excitement. 

During Akhnaton’s reign the temples of Amon and 
of the old gods had been neglected; and in the last years 
an absolute persecution of the old priesthoods had taken 
place; but the new Pharaoh restored these buildings and 
re-established their revenues, and in a great inscription 
at Karnak he tells us in vivid phrases how he did so. 
“The temples of the gods,” he says, “had come upon bad 
times. ‘Their courts were a road for common feet. The 
land was overridden with plagues, and the gods were 
neglected.”” But “His Majesty searched for what was 
useful for Amon,” made his image in pure gold, raised 
monuments to other gods, filled their buildings with 
foreign slaves, and multiplied their estates. 

He reigned at least six years, for the sixth year is 
mentioned on a piece of linen found in the Valley of the 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 107 


Tombs of the Kings some years ago, but to the end of 
his life he seems to have hovered uncertainly between 
the Amon and Aton religions, though now there was 
no longer any thought of monotheism. He was suc- 
ceeded by Ay, the maternal grandfather of his queen, 
who, after a brief reign, gave place to Horemheb, for- 
merly commander-in-chief of the army. Horemheb 
legitimised his accession by marrying Ay’s daughter, 
Nezemmut, sister of Akhnaton’s queen Nerfertiti; but 
later in his reign he turned upon the whole Akhnaton 
brood, and erased from the records the names of Akhna- 
ton, Smenkhara, Tutankhamen, and Ay, vilifying par- 
ticularly the memory of Akhnaton and calling him “that 
criminal.” His reign came to be dated from the death, 
of Amenhotep III, Akhnaton’s father, these interme- 
diate kings being ignored; and thus we find in the tomb 
of Mes at Sakkara a reference to his 59th year, although 
actually he did not reign for more than about 80 years, 
while in the famous list of kings at Abydos he is given 
as the immediate successor of Amenhotep ITI. 

In his book, Contra Apion, the ancient Jewish his- 
torian, Josephus, quotes a long passage from the now 
lost works of Manetho, the Egyptian historian who 
lived in the second century B.c.; and in my opinion this 
passage, which has been more or less ignored by Egyp- 
tologists as legendary and fanciful, actually gives a 
fairly correct account of the Tell-el-Amarna episode 
as viewed by those who were opposed to it. 

A certain Pharaoh Amenophis (Amenhotep), says 
Manetho, wished to hold communion with the gods, and 
he therefore asked the advice of Amenophis-son-of- 
Papis, a wise man, who told him that he must first clear 
the country of all impure persons. Some 80,000 un- 


108 TUTANKHAMEN 


clean people were therefore collected and sent to certain 
quarries on the east bank of the Nile that they might 
be separated from the rest of Egypt, but no violence 
was offered to them. This wise man, however, saw into 
the future that these unclean persons would obtain 
dominion over the whole land for thirteen years; and 
this he so dreaded that he committed suicide, leaving 
behind him a letter of warning to the King, who was 
much grieved. 

After a few years the city of Avaris, in Lower 
Egypt, was also assigned to these polluted people, and 
there they found a leader in the person of a certain 
priest of Heliopolis. They made a law for themselves 
that they would not worship the old gods of Egypt, nor 
reverence the sacred animals; and, deciding to open hos- 
tilities against the rest of Egypt, they invited certain 
wandering Semitic people to their aid, who came to 
them in great numbers. The Pharaoh Amenophis was 
afraid to fight them at first, because he thought that 
would be to war against the gods; so he went to Mem- 
phis, took the sacred Apis bull from the temple there, 
sent his little son Rameses, a boy of five, into hiding, 
and marched into Ethiopia, where he lived in exile 
under the friendly care of the King of Ethiopia. Mean- 
while, the confederacy of unclean Egyptians and 
Asiatics destroyed the images of the old gods, slaugh- 
tered the sacred animals, and committed every kind of 
outrage on orthodoxy; but at length the King returned 
from Ethiopia, overthrew them, and chased them out 
of Egypt. 

Such is Manetho’s story of what Josephus calls “the 
fatal thirteen years,” and though it is confused it is 
evident to me that it describes the thirteen years of 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 109 


the Aton “heresy” at Tell-el-Amarna. The wise old 
Amenophis-son-of-Papis is a well-known historical 
character who died at the end of the reign of Amenho- 
tep (Amenophis) III, Akhnaton’s father. He must 
have been an enemy of the rising Aton-worship, for he 
was Overseer of the Sacred Cattle of Amon and Leader 
of the Amon Festival. He was certainly a man whom 
the King would have consulted, and such a matter as 
the removal of a multitude would come within the scope 
of his official work, for he is known to have organised 
the whole country, and particularly to have had the 
management of all foreign slaves. How he died we do 
not know, but that the King took his death to heart is 
shown by the fact that he personally established the old 
man’s mortuary temple in the 31st year of his reign, 
which is just about the time of the rise of the Aton 
religion. 

The 80,000 unclean people I take to be the heretic 
Aton-worshippers, and their removal to the quarries on 
the east bank of the Nile corresponds very strikingly to 
the historic transference of the whole capital of Akhna- 
ton from Thebes to Tell-el-Amarna, a district on the 
east bank of the river, famous at that date for its quar- 
ries, then known as Hetnub. We know from the 
inscriptions from the tomb prepared for Horemheb at 
Sakkara before he came to the throne, that Akhnaton 
allowed Asiatics to settle in Egypt. We know also that 
the Tell-el-Amarna heresy lasted exactly thirteen years, 
as Manetho here says, for Akhnaton in one of his in- 
scriptions speaks of it beginning in the fourth year of 
his reign, and he died in the seventeenth. 

The persecution of the orthodox Egyptians is ex- 
actly in accordance with the known facts; and it is 


110 TUTANKHAMEN 


highly probable that when this persecution became 
intense, towards the end of the fatal thirteen years, 
those who were faithful to the old gods would have been 
obliged to fly southwards to Nubia and the borders of 
Ethiopia, just as the Mamelukes fled thither before the 
wrath of Mohammed Ali. That the Nubian princes 
were friendly i is known from the paintings and inscrip- 
tions in the tomb of Huy, Tutankhamen’s Viceroy in 
those regions; and the sovereign of the land of Maam 
in Nubia is there given the honourable title of “the good 
prince,” which is most unusual. 

Manetho makes all the events occur under one Pha- 
raoh, whom he calls Amenophis. Actually, they began 
under Amenophis or Amenhotep III; but, as has been 
mentioned above, Horemheb dated his reign from the 
death of this Amenhotep, and this may partly explain 
why Manetho mentions only one king. Manetho states 
that the King of Egypt was told that he must turn out 
the impure people if he wished to hold converse with the 
gods. On the great stela of Tutankhamen at Karnak 
that monarch tells us that he restored the old temples 
because he had found that the gods would not hold con- 
verse with him, which is a remarkable corroboration of 
Manetho’s statement. With reference to the mention 
of the Apis bull it is interesting to note, too, that 
Tutankhamen is known to have buried one of these 
sacred creatures in the Serapeum at Sakk4ra with full 
honours. 

This same Pharaoh, though still linked to some 
extent with the Aton heresy, made war on the Asiatics, 
and we read of “that day of the slaying of the Asiatics”; 
but it was Horemheb who finally thrust them out of 
Egypt. Horemheb’s successor (not son) was Rameses 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 111 


I, who may well have been only five years old, as 
Manetho states, at the time when the orthodox Egyp- 
tians went into exile. We do not know from the monu- 
ments anything about this exile, but, as has been said, 
it is very probable. Horemheb was once loyal to the 
heretic Akhnaton, but the persecution begun at the 
close of that reign may have caused him to leave Egypt 
for a short time. If the little boy, Rameses, was then 
five years of age he would have been nearly fifty years 
of age at his accession on the death of Horemheb in 
B.c. 1815, which is quite in accord with the known his- 
torical facts. 

I think it is clear, therefore, that we have here with- 
out question Manetho’s account of the Aton heresy; but 
now comes the interesting point in regard to Tutankha- 
men. Manetho states that the priest of Heliopolis, who 
led the confederacy of unclean people at Avaris was 
none other than Moses. 

If he is correct we may suppose that Moses was 
born in the reign of Amenhotep III; that he fled to the 
land of Midian in the reign of Akhnaton; that Akhna- 
ton’s death is referred to in Exodus ii, 23, in the words: 
“And it came to pass in process of time that the King 
of Egypt died”; and that Tutankhamen was the Pha- 
raoh under whom Moses returned to Egypt and organ- 
ised the exodus of his enslaved countrymen. 

How does this accord with the known facts? Until 
now the all-important date of the Exodus has neven 
been decided by Egyptologists; and tradition has 
simply associated these events with the Pharaoh best 
known to it—Rameses the Great. The Biblical evi- 
dence is contradictory. In Kings vi, 1, it is stated that 
480 years elapsed between the Exodus and the building 


112 TUTANKHAMEN 


of the temple at Jerusalem. The latter date is fixed at 
B.c. 973, which would give B.c. 1453 as the date of the 
Exodus. But, on the other hand, in Exodus i, 11, the 
Israelites are said to have built the treasure cities of 
Pithom and Raamses before they left Egypt, and 
these cities are generally thought to have been built 
under Rameses II, the Pharaoh who came to the throne 
in B.c. 1292, though actually, as Dr. Gardiner has 
pointed out,* their identification with earlier cities is 
likely. The only piece of Egyptian evidence in regard 
to early Israe! occurs in an inscription in the fifth year 
of the Pharaoh Merenptah, B.c. 1220, in which there is 
a list of foreign conquests, including that of Israel; but 
all we can gather from this is that the Jews were then 
a recognised nation apparently outside Egypt. 

The genealogies given in 1 Chronicles vi, however, 
supply yet another date; for they give eleven or twelve 
generations between the time of Exodus and that of 
David (xB.c. 1000). One generally allows three genera- 
tions to the century, as, for example, in the case of the 
genealogy of the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty 
down to Amenhotep III; and this takes us back to some- 
where between B.c. 1360 and 13380 for the Exodus. 
Tutankhamen reigned from B.c. 1858 to about 1350; 
and therefore these genealogies bring us just to the 
required date. 

There is another computation which brings us to 
somewhere about the same date for the Exodus. We 
read in the Book of Exodus that the whole period of 
the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt was 430 years, 
and a rabbinical tradition states that 190 years of this 
period were passed before the oppression and 240 years 

* Part No. 234 of the Bibliothéque de VEcole des Hautes Etudes. 





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THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS 118 


after it. In the Book of Genesis the prophecy is made 
that the Israelites shall pass 200 years in bondage; but 
as there is no means of saying whether this 200 years or 
the 240 years is the correct figure, we may as well split 
the difference and reckon that the bondage lasted some- 
where about 220 years. Now most scholars are agreed 
that the oppression began when Ahmose I, the first 
King of the Eighteenth Dynasty, conquered the Asi- 
atics who had been living in Lower Egypt all through 
the Hyksos period, and made himself master of Syria. 
This conquest took place somewhere about B.c. 1570, 
about ten years after the accession of Ahmose I; and, 
reckoning the bondage from that date, we reach about 
B.c. 1850 for the Exodus, which thus falls within 
Tutankhamen’s reign. It may be, however, that the 
oppression started when the kings of the Seventeenth 
Dynasty first began their wars against the foreigners, 
somewhere about B.c. 1590; and if the 240 years is the 
correct figure, we would thus again reach B.c. 1350 as 
about the date of the Exodus. 

The Tell-el-Amarna letters, however, afford the 
most striking testimony to Manetho’s correctness in 
assigning the days of Moses to this period. From these 
letters we learn that Akhnaton’s last years were over- 
cast by the revolts in Syria, and we obtain a vivid pic- 
ture from them of events in that country. We see the 
Hittites pressmg down from the north; we see the 
Amorites in arms under their prince Aziru; and we see 
a horde of tribesmen, called the Khabiri, pushing into 
Palestine from the south and east. In one case we have 
a letter from Ninur, a queen of part of Judea, who calls 
herself Akhnaton’s handmaid, and entreats him to save 
her from the Khabiri, who have captured one of her 


114 TUTANKHAMEN 


cities. ‘There is another letter, this time from Ribaddi, 
King of Byblos, in which he says that the fortress of 
Simyra has fallen into the hands of the Khabiri. A 
letter from a certain Ebed-tob says that the Khabiri are 
capturing his forts, and another letter from him states 
that they are laying everything waste. Other letters 
show that Aziru, the Amorite, was in league with these 
Khabiri against Akhnaton. 

Various scholars have hazarded the suggestion that 
the Khabiri are to be identified with the Hebrews, as 
the similarity of the names may indicate; and if this be 
so we must suppose that at this time hordes of Semitic 
peoples—Hebrews—related to the children of Israel 
resident in Egypt were pouring into Palestine and 
carrying all before them. Now, Moses conceived the 
idea of the Exodus while he was living in Midian, one 
of the centres from which the Khabiri are thought to 
have been moving northwards into Palestine; and thus 
if he lived at this period we can see how he was there 
told of this land flowing with milk and honey which his 
fellow-Semites were conquering, and how he deter- 
mined to go back to Egypt and to raise his oppressed 
countrymen, urging them to march out of Egypt and 
to join the other Hebrews, the Khabiri, in their attack 
on Palestine. The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt 
therefore becomes simply part of the great movement 
of the Semitic tribesmen, which was taking place at this 
period; and thus it is a far more understandable event 
than it can ever be if it is regarded as an isolated adven- 
ture. Those who are willing to believe that Moses had 
sufficient to inspire him in the word of God given from 
the burning bush, may be able to think of the decision 
of the Israelites to march out of Egypt as being justi- 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS _ 115 


fied; but those of us who have been unable to accept the 
recorded divine intervention as fact, have had to regard 
the Exodus as the extreme of recklessness. Now, how- 
ever, by fixing it at this date when these tribesmen were 
all on the march northwards, we can see clearly what 
induced the Israelites in Egypt to set out across the 
desert and what made the adventure seem certain of 
success. In this case it is quite possible that the Biblical 
story of the invasion of Palestine under Joshua is to be 
identified with the invasion of the Khabiri as told in the 
Tell-el-Am4rna letters, and that these events occurred 
before the Exodus and wanderings of the Israelites, 
and not after. Indeed the leader of the Khabiri, so 
often referred to in these letters as “that dog,” may be 
Joshua himself. 

The Biblical narrative suggests that although the 
Egyptians were using the Israelites extensively as 
slaves in their building operations, they were ultimately 
not unwilling to let them go, and indeed in Exodus 
xi, 1, and xii, 39, the latter are described as being 
“thrust out of Egypt.” This accords well with the sug- 
gestion that Tutankhamen was on the throne at the 
time, for we know from his Karnak inscription that he 
was employing Asiatic slaves in his great work of re- 
building the temples ruined by Akhnaton, and at the 
same time representations of him chasing Asiatics out 
of Egypt have been found. I need not point out how 
wide an area of thought is opened up by this supposi- 
tion that Moses lived through the Aton heresy; for the 
question as to what connection there was between the 
Hebrew monotheism and this earliest known mono- 
theism of the Egyptians will at once present itself to 


116 TUTANKHAMEN 


the reader. It is a subject which deserves the fullest 
study. 

With reference to the plagues, it is interesting to 
notice that Tutankhamen in the same inscription speaks 
of Egypt as being plague-ridden in his reign. In re- 
gard to the death of the first-born, it is to be noticed 
that Tutankhamen had no son to succeed him. The 
Pharaoh of the Exodus, by the way, was not himself 
drowned in the Red Sea; for the hymn of Moses, given 
in Exodus xv, makes that clear. 

Let us now look for a moment at the traditional 
stories of the Exodus given in the Jewish Talmud. 
This ancient book states that the Pharaoh under whom 
Moses fled to Midian was afflicted with leprosy; but it 
is possible that the story originated in the fact that the 
King was religiously unclean, like the 80,000 who in 
Manetho’s account left Thebes, that is to say, he was a 
heretic. If this interpretation of “leprosy” be correct, 
we have here a fact which points clearly to Akhnaton as 
the monarch in question. The Talmud further states 
that this Pharaoh fell from his chariot and was badly 
injured, but survived as an invalid for three years. 
Have we here the record of an accident which occurred 
to Akhnaton?—and does this explain why it was that 
Smenkhkara was associated on the throne with him 
during these last years of his reign? 

Another curious statement is made in the Talmud. 
It is said that when this Pharaoh died he left two sons 
and three daughters, and that the son who succeeded 
him was a dwarf. Now Akhnaton, when he died, left 
two sons-in-law, and, apart from their wives, three little 
daughters, as mentioned above, one other daughter hav- 
ing died, and another having gone to Babylon. Was 


THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS _ 117 


Tutankhamen, then, a dwarf? We must leave the 
answer until his body is examined; but it is interesting 
to recall the fact that in his tomb were found a very 
small giove and cap, and some very small stools, while 
his statue in the Cairo Museum is only about five feet 
in height. Moreover, the word T'ut may be regarded 
as an Egyptian word, and not as the Asiatic David, in 
which case it means a figure, or statuette, or puppet, 
and is the sort of name a man of small stature might be 
expected to have. ‘This, however, is merely an amusing 
speculation. 

Another interesting problem which I may here touch 
upon in conclusion is that relating to the fate of Tut- 
ankhamen’s queen, Ankhsenpeaton, afterwards called 
Ankhsenamen. She was born in or about the eighth 
year of the reign of her father, Akhnaton, and was only 
nine years old when he died. She was married to 
Tutankhamen, therefore, at about that age, which is by 
no means uncommonly young for marriage in Egypt; 
and when her husband died, some seven years later, she 
was still only about sixteen, and was childless. 

Among the Hittite archives, discovered at Bohaz 
Keui, there is a letter written by a Hittite king in which 
he gives the following curious information. During the 
reign of his father, he says, the King of Egypt, Tut- 
ankhamen, died, and the widowed queen, whose name 
was Dakhamun, wrote to him saying that her husband 
was dead and that she had no children, and therefore 
that if the Hittite king had a grown-up son she would 
like to marry him. An ambassador was at once sent to 
Egypt to report, and especially to find out how it was 
that she had no heir. 

Owing to a lacuna the remainder of the letter is not 


118 TUTANKHAMEN 


easy to understand, but it appears that the queen ex- 
plained that no man had had seed by her, and that if 
she now married the Hittite prince she would be able to 
make him King of Egypt. She then selected one of the 
Hittite king’s sons, but the letter does not tell us 
whether she ever actually married him, nor do we know 
from other sources what happened to her. 

It is hard to reconcile the name Dakhamun with 
Ankhsenamen, yet we must do so, since the latter had 
been ‘Tutankhamen’s sole queen; and thus we see how 
this sixteen-year-old widow was fending for herself. 
At the death of her husband the throne had passed to 
Ay, the father (not foster-father, as some Egyptolo- 
gists have thought *) of Nefertiti, Akhnaton’s queen. 
Ay was thus Ankhsenamen’s grandfather; but that fact 
did not deter her, it seems, from attempting to oust him 
from the throne and to put a Hittite in his place in 
order to save herself from retirement. It is significant 
that the next king, Horemheb, fought the Hittites, as 
shown on his pylons at Karnak; and we are left won- 
dering whether Tutankhamen’s ambitious widow was 
the cause of the war. 

These are some of the problems which present them- 
selves to the mind in regard to the reign of Tutankh- 
amen; but we must wait some time yet before more 
light can be shed upon them from the tomb. 


“Compare his titles with those of Yuaa, father of Queen Tiy: Ay’s 
wife, Ty, was evidently Nefertiti’s step-mother, 


CHAPTER V 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 


HE ruins of the ancient city of Thebes, once the 
capital of Egypt, stand on the east bank of the 


Nile, some 450 miles south of Cairo. On the 
opposite side of the river there is a two-mile strip of 
flat, cultivated land, wherein are numerous clumps of 
trees and groups of native huts; and behind this verdant 
plain rise the mighty hills of the desert, bounding the 
view like a wall of gold against the deep blue of the 
sky. At the back of the first range of hills lies the deso- 
late valley in which the tombs described in the previous 
chapters are situated, and which is approached either by 
a road entering this barren region of rocks and cliffs 
along a gorge where once flowed a primeval torrent, or 
else by bridle-paths over the heights. In this valley 
practically all the Pharaohs of Egypt who reigned 
between the years B.c. 1500 and B.c. 1000 were buried, 
their sepulchres being cut into the face of the cliffs or 
hillsides and penetrating deep into the solid rock in a 
series of passages and halls. 

It was the Egyptian custom to bury a large amount 
of jewellery with their dead, and the Pharaohs selected 
this remote and unfrequented valley for their necropo- 
lis, in order that their sepulchres should not be attacked 
by robbers, as those of their predecessors had been. 
Some of these earlier kings, as far back as B.c. 1800, 


had been buried in small pyramids built at the exposed 
119 


120 TUTANKHAMEN 


foot of the hills, at the edge of the cultivated land over- 
looking the Nile; and already, in B.c. 1500, many of the 
tombs had been pillaged. But although the succeeding 
Pharaohs hid their sepulchres away so carefully in the 
valley behind, the secret was not kept for long, and soon 
the new necropolis came to be as insecure from the 
plunderers as the old. 

About z.c. 1150, when a line of degenerate Pha- 
raohs of the name of Rameses had, for some genera- 
tions, ruled a nation fast slipping down the road to ruin, 
a systematic robbery of the royal sepulchres which were 
not well hidden commenced; and such fear for the safety 
of the mummies of the Pharaohs was felt that a few 
years later the priests entered all the known tombs and 
carried off the royal remains, placing them together in 
a secret hiding-place, where they lay undisturbed until 
they were discovered in 1881 and conveyed to the 
museum in Cairo. 

This hiding of the Pharaohs was only resorted to 
when the corruption of the Government no longer per- 
mitted the thieves to be arrested and brought to justice. 
When the wholesale robberies first began the police 
made some attempt to cope with the danger, and the 
prosecution of a large number of culprits was effected ; 
but there can be no question that several high officials 
were generally implicated, and from this and other 
causes the ends of justice were defeated. The first and 
probably the only effective trials took place in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth years of the reign of Rameses 
IX and in the first years of Rameses X, 1.e., about 
B.c. 1126-1128. 

A record of these trials, fortunately, has been pre- 
served to us, written on papyrus. One roll, known as 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 121 


the Abbott Papyrus, was discovered at Thebes, and in 
1857 was purchased by the British Museum from Dr. 
Abbott, of Cairo, into whose hands it had passed. 
Another roll was purchased by the late Lord Amherst, 
of Hackney. There is a fragment in the Turin 
Museum, and two other pieces, known as the Meyer 
Papyrus, now rest in the Liverpool Museum. Several 
translations of these important documents have been 
made, but the literature on the subject is not very easy 
of access, and the story which the documents tell has 
to be pieced together. It is a narrative of much interest 
just now, when the discovery of the tomb of one of the 
Pharaohs, by Lord Carnarvon, has turned the eyes of 
the world to the Valley of the Kings. 

At the time of the robberies thus recorded, the Gov- 
ernment of Thebes, and of all Upper Egypt, was in the 
hands of the Vizer Khamwast. Under him at Thebes, 
there were two mayors, one presiding over the great 
city on the east bank of the Nile, and the other in charge 
of the necropolis and the various temples and religious 
buildings on the west bank. The former, the Mayor of 
the City, was a presumably honest man, named Paser; 
the latter, the Mayor of the Necropolis, was a plausible 
scoundrel of the name of Pauraa. These two men had 
evidently quarrelled with one another, and, as is the 
Egyptian custom, each was eager to obtain any piece of 
information which might be derogatory to the other and 
might lead to his downfall. To this day Egyptian 
officials spend a great deal of their time in this kind of 
intrigue, and the only saving grace in this aspect of 
their lives is the fact that they treat these incidents very 
lightly, and when the rage of the moment is. passed they 
smile and make friends in the happiest manner. | 


122 TUTANKHAMEN 


The quarrel was probably in full swing when news 
was brought to Paser, sitting fat and resplendent in 
his house in the city, that a certain royal tomb in the 
necropolis under the care of his rival Pauraa had been 
entered by thieves and plundered under the noses of the 
police. The tomb which was reported to have been 
robbed was that of a Pharaoh named Sebekemsaf and 
of Nubkhas, his queen, who had lived somewhere about 
B.c. 1700. ‘The thieves, eight in number, seem to have 
been living in the city, and Paser was therefore able to 
seize them and to extract a confession from them. The 
first part of this document is now lost, but the second 
part, which records how the thieves had entered the 
tomb of the king and queen, has been preserved. 

“We penetrated through the masonry and mortar of 
the tomb,” runs the confession, “and we found the queen 
lying there. We opened the coffin and the coverings in 
which it was. Then we found the august mummy of 
the king. There were numerous amulets and golden 
ornaments at his throat, his head had a mask of gold 
upon it, and the mummy itself was overlaid with gold 
throughout. Its coverings were wrought with gold and 
silver within and without, and were inlaid with every 
splendid and costly stone. We stripped off the gold 
which we found on the august mummy of this king, and 
the amulets and ornaments which were at its throat, and 
the coverings in which it rested. We found the queen 
likewise, and we stripped off all that we found on her in 
the same manner. We then set fire to the coffins, and 
carried away the funeral-furniture which we found with 
them, consisting of gold, silver, and bronze. We 
divided the booty, and made the gold, amulets, orna- 
ments, and coverings into eight parts.” 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 123 


This confession, together with the list of the eight 
names, Paser at once despatched to the Vizir, who was 
living in Thebes. The Vizir very wisely took no action 
until he had heard what the Mayor of the Necropolis, 
Pauraa, had to say; and he at once sent across the river 
to that personage, ordering him to send in a report. 
Pauraa, realising the gravity of the matter, thought it 
best to assume an attitude of complete innocence, and 
he therefore requested the Vizir to send an official com- 
mission of inspectors over to the necropolis to enquire 
into the truth of the so-called confession. This was 
done, and accompanied by Pauraa and a detachment of 
police, the inspectors made a thorough examination 
of ten royal tombs, all of which were found to be un- 
injured; but when they came to the sepulchre which 
had been the subject of the scandal they found that it 
had been ransacked exactly as the eight thieves had 
described. They then proceeded to examine the tombs 
of the queens of more recent date, and they found that 
two of them had been robbed, while of the sepulchres 
of the nobles, which they next examined, not one re- 
mained intact. “It was found,” says their report, “that 
the thieves had broken into them all, that they had 
pulled out the occupants from their coverings and cof- 
fins and had thrown them to the ground; and that they 
had stolen the articles of furniture which had been given 
to them, together with the gold, the silver, and the 
ornaments.” 

When the commission returned to the Vizir things 
must have looked very black for Pauraa and his necrop- 
olis officials, while Paser must have chuckled with 
pleasure at the imminent downfall of his rival. By this 
time the whole of his household no doubt knew what 


124 TUTANKHAMEN 


was afoot, and all were eager to win their master’s 
favour by routing out further evidence of the negligence 
or guilt of the Mayor of the opposite bank of the Nile. 
But in such matters Egyptians are, to this day, very 
apt to defeat their own ends by overloading the case for 
the prosecution with worthless evidence; and this fatal 
blunder was now made by Paser. One of his servants 
or agents reminded him that a certain coppersmith, 
named Pakharu, son, by the way, of a woman called 
Little-Cat, had languished in prison for nearly two 
years on a charge of having been connected with sus- 
pected thefts from the tomb of Queen Isis, the wife of 
Rameses III: and the suggestion was made that he 
might be able to furnish further information concerning 
the robberies. Paser, therefore, caused the man to be 
brought to him, and having satisfied himself that the 
information likely to be obtained was of value to the 
case, he sent him to the Vizir, and thereafter, one may 
suppose, sat down in his house to await the inevitable 
discomfiture of Pauraa. 

Upon the next day the Vizir examined this copper- 
smith and the eight other thieves who had made the 
original confession to Paser; and, to quote the subse- 
quent report, “having been examined by beatings with 
a double rod upon their hands and feet, they told the 
same story as before,’ the coppersmith’s confession 
being to the effect that he “had entered the sepulchre 
of Queen Isis, and had carried off a few things from it 
and had retained them.” When torture is employed in 
extracting a confession, however, the statements of the 
victims have to be tested in order to ascertain whether 
they are not merely lies told to obtain temporary relief 
from pain. The Vizir, therefore, ordered the prisoners 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 125 


to accompany him to the other side of the river, and to 
identify the tombs which they said they had robbed. 

The cavalcade set out on its excursion a day or two 
later. At the head of the procession the nine prisoners 
were led along by the police; and behind them came the 
Vizir riding in his chariot, accompanied by the Pha- 
raoh’s Chief Butler, a very important personage, named 
Nesuamon. Then followed a number of secretaries and 
officials, and a mixed company of servants and soldiers. 
When they had traversed the road leading across the 
fields and had reached the desert at the foot of the 
towering hills, the Vizir seems to have decided first to 
test the evidence of the coppersmith in regard to the 
tomb of Queen Isis; and it appears that he left the eight 
other thieves in the charge of some of his men, intending 
to hold the enquiry as to the veracity of their confession 
later in the day. The tomb of Queen Isis, which the 
modern tourist knows as No. 51, is cut into the hillside 
at the southern end of the necropolis, in what is now 
known as the Valley of the Queens, but which was in 
those days called the Place of Beauty. It was ap- 
proached by a road which passed up into the hills behind 
the great temple of Rameses III; and as the party 
proceeding along it came into view of the royal burial- 
ground they blindfolded the coppersmith, only remov- 
ing the bandage when they had placed him on the rocky 
terrace along which the more important sepulchres were 
situated. 

The man was then told to identify the tomb which 
he had said he had entered, and no doubt he was hurried 
into a decision by the sticks of his captors. Dazed and 
terrified, he led the party to the mouth of a tomb which, 
unfortunately, proved to be an empty sepulchre never 


126 TUTANKHAMEN 


used for a burial at all. A sound beating followed this 
error, and the coppersmith, still more confused, then 
admitted his mistake and pointed to another cavernous 
opening in the cliff. The officials hastened forward, 
only to find that the place was simply a cave inhabited 
by one of the workmen of the necropolis. The copper- 
smith was thereupon “examined in this great valley with 
a severe examination,” so the report tells; that is to say, 
he was stretched upon the ground in the customary 
fashion and beaten with stout sticks. No further 
information, however, could be obtained from him, and 
at last he swore an oath in the name of the Pharaoh, 
saying, “I know not any place here amongst these 
tombs except these which I have pointed out,” and 
declaring that his nose and ears might be cut off if he 
were proved to have lied. 

Thoroughly disgusted, the Vizir then drove north- 
wards along the edge of the desert towards the pyramid- 
tombs which were said to have been robbed by the other 
prisoners; and his wrath may be imagined when he 
received the news that all the eight had managed to 
escape from their guards and had fled into the hills. 
The Vizir seems to have vented his fury on the over- 
zealous Paser, the Mayor of the City, who had instigated 
the proceedings, and, in the case of the coppersmith, 
had certainly sent the party on a wild goose chase. On 
the return journey the friends of Pauraa, the Mayor 
of the Necropolis, seemed to have approached him to 
ask permission to come across the river to Thebes that 
afternoon as a deputation in favour of their master; 
and this the Vizir, doubtless having received heavy 
bakshish, readily granted, apparently indicating that 
they could go and jeer at Paser. to their hearts’ content. 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 127 


Pauraa, meanwhile, had been working at high speed, 
and by threats and bribes had obtained the names of a 
number of persons implicated in the robberies; and 
now he hastened to send the list to the Vizir, of course, 
with further presents, and he made it appear that he 
himself had been the instigator of the investigations 
which had taken place, and that the confessions ex- 
tracted by Paser were faked up, the real thieves having 
been detected by himself alone. The failure of the 
coppersmith to corroborate his written confession 
materially strengthened Pauraa’s position; and the gen- 
eral opinion amongst the Vizir’s entourage seems now 
to have been that the Mayor of the City had obtained 
possession of some of the facts about to be revealed by 
the Mayor of the Necropolis, and had attempted to 
forestall him. 

That same afternoon, in accordance with the sanc- 
tion given in the morning, a number of officials con- 
nected with the necropolis, together with the various 
members of Pauraa’s household, and a crowd of work- 
men from that side of the river, crossed over to Thebes 
and made a demonstration against Paser under the 
guise of a deputation to the Vizir. It is probable that 
they marched through the streets of the city, and they 
seem to have paused in front of Paser’s house to groan 
and swear at him in the usual Egyptian manner. 
Paser’s chagrin at this turn of events knew no bounds; 
and by the time that the demonstration had broken up 
he was in a state of such uncontrolled fury that he was 
hardly responsible for his actions. 

In the evening he drove along the great avenue of 
sphinxes to the Temple of Karnak, probably to discuss 
matters with the High Priest or some great dignitary of 


128 TUTANKHAMEN 


the priesthood of Amon-Ra; and while he was standing 
at the doorway of the little Temple of Ptah, at the north 
end of the sacred precincts, he met the Chief Butler, 
Nesuamon, who was probably at Karnak for a similar 
purpose. The two men fell into conversation, and 
Nesuamon, pretending to be the disinterested spectator 
of the affair, no doubt bewailed Paser’s ill fortune and 
admonished him for his over-zeal. ‘They were thus 
engaged when three of the demonstrators, who had not 
yet returned to the other side of the river, happened to 
pass by. At sight of them Paser was quite unable to 
contain his anger, and he called across to them, using a 
wealth of language which at once brought them, shaking 
with rage, over to him. A lively exchange of highly- 
flavoured vituperation ensued, and at length the Mayor 
of the City broke into real accusations against the Mayor 
of the Necropolis. 

“As for this deputation which you have made,” he 
roared, “it is no deputation at all. It is simply your 
jubilation at my expense. You exult over me at the 
very door of my house. O indeed! Remember I am a 
Mayor and I make my reports direct to the Pharaoh, 
and thus you exult over him. You were there when the 
tombs were inspected, were you?—and you found them 
uninjured! I tell you the tomb of Sebekemsaf and of 
his queen Nubkhas was broken into, though you make 
ten reports to the contrary. I invoke the severity of 
Amon-Ra, King of the Gods, upon you in defence of 
these sacred tombs, here where I stand this day in his 
halls.” 

One of the men replied that all the other tombs, at 
any rate, were undamaged, and he added that they were 
under the care of the Pharaoh, a remark which was 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 129 


meant to indicate that any suggestion that they had 
come to harm was a slight upon the king. Paser re- 
torted: “Are your deeds as good as your words?” 
Then, his passion getting the better of his discretion, 
he flung a further accusation at them. “Look,” he 
cried, “the scribe of the necropolis, Horishere, came to 
my house the other day, and made three very serious 
accusations against you all. And the scribe of the 
necropolis, Pebes, also told me of two other matters, 
making in all five accusations. I had them put in writ- 
ing. God forbid that he who possesses such information 
should keep silent concerning it; for they are great and 
capital crimes worthy of the utmost penalty of the law. 
And I am going to write about them to Pharaoh, so 
that he may send someone to take you all in charge.” 
Then he swore ten round oaths, and said solemnly, “So 
will I do.” 

Having launched this bolt at the Mayor of the 
Necropolis and his creatures, he returned to his house, 
fuming with apparently justifiable rage. The Chief 
Butler, Nesuamon, who had been present during this 
episode, and who had his own axe to grind, hurried next 
morning across the river to Pauraa, and told him all 
that had occurred. “It were a crime,” said the hypo- 
critical wretch, “for one like me to hear such words and 
to conceal them; and therefore I report them to you.” 
Pauraa immediately sat down and wrote a long letter 
to the Vizir, accusing Paser of slander; and this docu- 
ment Nesuamon seems to have taken back with him to 
Thebes when he returned to the city, together with any 
further presents which may have seemed suitable to the 
occasion. Paser had certainly been very indiscreet, and 


130 TUTANKHAMEN 


should not have lost his temper as he did, though one 
can hardly blame him for doing so. 

To the Vizir, however, his conduct seemed unpar- 
donable, and worthy of public reprimand. He appears, 
therefore, to have sent for Paser and to have ascer- 
tained from him the nature of the five accusations of 
which he had spoken; and having learnt that these 
concerned some other coppersmiths who were said to 
have committed further robberies, he seems to have 
caused the immediate arrest of this new gang, and to 
have held a rapid enquiry which led him to doubt the 
truth of their evidence. He then sent a message to 
the Mayor of the City to attend at the trial of the copper- 
smiths, which was fixed for the next day, and the un- 
fortunate Paser must have realised that the men would 
certainly be proved not guilty, and that he himself 
would be found to be in the wrong. 

The trial was held the next morning in “the great 
court of the city near the gate called Praise,” the judges 
who presided being the Vizir, the Chief Butler, the 
High Priest of Amon-Ra, the High Steward of the 
House of the Divine Votress of Amon-Ra, the Chief 
Standard-bearer of the Navy, a Scribe of the Temple- 
of-Millions-of-Y ears-of-the-Pharaoh, another high offi- 
cial whose title is now illegible, and, of course, Paser 
himself, who had a seat on the judicial bench, as being 
Mayor of the City. 

The Vizir, in addressing the court, said: “The 
Mayor of the City here, Paser, spoke a few words to 
certain officials of the necropolis in the presence of the 
Chief Butler, Nesuamon, making slanderous statements 
concerning the tombs which are in the necropolis. Now, 
I, the Vizir of the Land, have been there with Nesua- 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 131 


mon; and we inspected the tombs where Paser said the 
robbers had been. We found them uninjured, and 
therefore all that he said is shown to be untrue. See 
now, the accused coppersmiths themselves stand before 
you: let them tell all that has occurred.” The pris- 
oners were forthwith examined, and were soon proved 
to the satisfaction of the court to be innocent of the 
charges brought against them. “It was found,” says 
the report, “that they did not know any of the tombs 
in the necropolis about which the Mayor of the City had 
made these accusations. He was found to be in the 
wrong in this matter.” ‘The Vizir then seems to have 
admonished Paser, and having caused the coppersmiths 
to be released, he dismissed the court. Pauraa had com- 
pletely triumphed, although, in view of the evidence 
which the modern excavator’s spade has revealed, it is 
pretty certain that wholesale robberies were taking 
place at this time; and the unfortunate Paser suffered 
the penalty of meddling in the affairs of the other bank 
of the river. It is surprising that he ever expected to 
be thanked for opening up to public view a scandal 
which would have been injurious to the Vizir’s reputa- 
tion had the accusations been substantiated, and, indeed, 
it is this flying in the face of the powers above him 
which makes one feel certain that he was an honest man. 

About a year later the eight thieves who had escaped 
into the hills during the Vizir’s inspection of the tombs 
appear to have been recaptured; and a confession seems 
to have been extracted from them that the tomb of 
Queen Isis had really been robbed, and that they, and 
not the coppersmiths originally suspected, had com- 
mitted the crime. The Vizir therefore made another 
journey to the Valley of the Queens, and this time he 


132 TUTANKHAMEN 


decided to remove the stones which blocked the entrance 
of the sepulchre in the usual way, so that he might see 
for himself whether the burial was intact. For this 
purpose he brought some workmen with him and these 
men soon effected an entrance into the tomb. The Vizir 
and his officers then crawled into the subterranean pas- 
sage probably muttering prayers to the shade of the 
dead queen and calling her attention to the not very 
apparent fact that they were honest men bent only on 
securing the safety of her earthly remains; but when 
they reached the burial-chamber at the end of the 
passage they found that the thieves “had wrought evil 
destruction on all that was therein.” The lid of the 
granite sarcophagus had been prised off, the mummy 
had been pulled out of the inner coffin and had been 
much damaged, and the funeral-furniture had been 
thrown about the chamber. Three thousand years later 
I myself made a similar official inspection of this tomb 
which had been re-opened by the Italian Egyptologist, 
Professor Schiaparelli, but nothing now remained of 
the burial except a few broken fragments of the wood- 
work and the damaged granite sarcophagus. Unfortu- 
nately the documents which have been preserved to us 
do not relate the subsequent proceedings, but it is to be 
supposed that the result of the investigation placed a 
feather in the cap of the ill-used Mayor of the City, 
Paser. 

Two years now elapsed, and the Vizir Khamwast 
was succeeded in his office by a certain Nebmara-Nakht, 
who does not seem to have been quite so prejudiced in 
favour of the Mayor of the Necropolis, Pauraa. That 
personage, therefore, felt it necessary to show greater 
activity in the detection of the robberies, and he hastened 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 133 


to send in the names of forty-five persons suspected of 
similar crimes. Six of these thieves were brought to 
trial a month later, and fortunately we have a full ac- 
count of the proceedings. They were accused of robbing 
the sepulchres of the great Pharaohs Sety I and Rameses 
II, two enormous tombs which are situated in the Val- 
ley of the Kings behind the first range of the Theban 
hills. It appears from the evidence that the robbers 
had first obtained access to the tombs many years pre- 
viously, and since that time they had paid regular visits 
to their secret treasure trove, in the manner of the forty 
thieves in the Arabian Nights. 

The mouths of the sepulchres were blocked with 
stones, but the thieves had doubtless tunnelled their way 
into the interior in such a manner that the hole could be 
entirely concealed. 

These ghouls must have been men of very strong 
nerves thus to penetrate into the subterranean halls and 
passages where the spirits of the dead monarchs were 
thought to roam at large. It is not as though they could 
climb in, snatch up some article of value, and scramble 
back to safety; they had to penetrate more than 500 feet 
into the hillside and to descend nearly 150 feet. In the 
case of the tomb of Sety I, for example, the thieves had 
first to descend a long flight of steps, then pass along a 
passage leading to a second flight and a further passage. 
This brought them into a room opening out into a large 
hall, the roof of which was supported by four great 
columns. From a corner of this echoing hall a stairway 
descended into another long passage, at the end of which 
a shorter flight of steps led down into two further pas- 
sages. ‘Then came a large columned hall from which 
four rooms opened, and at last, down some more steps, 


134 TUTANKHAMEN 


they reached the actual place of burial. From end to 
end of this vast subterranean palace of the Pharaoh’s 
spirit the walls were covered with sculpture and paint- 
ings representing the gods and demons of the Under- 
world; and the figure of the king they were outraging 
was to be seen on all sides in communion with the deities 
whose wrath they were incurring. Sometimes when I 
have been sitting at work alone at the bottom of this 
great tomb, I have been oppressed by the silence and the 
mystery of the place; and if, after this lapse of three 
thousand years, one is still conscious of the awful sanc- 
tity of these dark halls cut into the heart of the hills, one 
wonders what must have been the sensations of the an- 
cient thieves who penetrated by the light of a flickering 
oil lamp into the very presence of the dead. 

The trial of the robbers was conducted by the new 
Vizir, the Overseer of the White House, the Herald of 
Pharaoh, and the Steward of the Court. It appears 
that the Chief of the Police had been informed that 
the robbers were wont to enter the tombs every now 
and then, and his agents had managed to give him the 
date of their next visit. He therefore hid himself with 
some of his men near one of the sepulchres, and thus 
managed to catch the thieves red-handed. This official 
now gave his evidence, describing what had occurred, 
after which the prisoners were each brought in and bas- 
tinadoed until they confessed their guilt. In the case 
of each of the wretches, the report says, “The exami- 
nation was conducted by beating with a rod, the bas- 
tinado was applied to the hands and feet, and the oath 
of the king was administered that the speaker might be 
put to death if the truth were not told.” 

The first prisoner was a herdsman in charge of the 


THE ANCIENT GHOULS OF THEBES 135 


sacred cattle of Amon-Ra, the second was an official of 
the necropolis, the third a watchman of the temple, the 
fourth a priest, the fifth a weaver, and the sixth a woman 
who was the mistress of another priest also implicated. 
The evidence mostly relates to the objects stolen from 
these tombs, which were discovered in the possession of 
the prisoners when their houses were searched. Articles 
made of gold and copper had been found, and most of 
the prisoners did their best to explain how they had ob- 
tained them innocently from other hands. The evidence, 
however, was damning; and although the end of the 
trial is not recorded, it is unlikely that any of the 
prisoners escaped with their lives. 

Two days later the trial of five other suspected 
persons was conducted, but in their case the evidence was 
not conclusive and they were all found not guilty. A: 
few months afterwards the trial of twenty-two further 
prisoners is briefly noted, one of whom was convicted 
of having broken into three royal tombs. Another docu: 
ment contains a long list of names of persons afterwards 
arrested on suspicion, but their evidence is not recorded. 

These wholesale disclosures must have caused the 
downfall of the Mayor of the Necropolis, and it is to be 
hoped that his enemy, the Mayor of the City, received 
ample compensation for the slights inflicted upon him; 
but, sad to relate, there is nothing to tell us what oc- 
curred, and for all we know, Paser may have died in 
unmerited disgrace in the interval between the first and 
second investigation. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MALEVOLENCE OF ANCIENT 
EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 


URING the recent excavations which led to 
1) the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, 
‘Mr. Howard Carter had in his house a canary: 
which daily regaled him with its happy song. On the 
day, however, on which the entrance to the tomb was 
laid bare, a cobra entered the house, pounced on the bird, 
and swallowed it. Now, cobras are rare in Egypt, and 
are seldom seen in winter; but in ancient times they 
were regarded as the symbol of royalty, and each 
Pharaoh wore this symbol upon his forehead, as though 
to signify his power to strike and sting his enemies. 
Those who believed in omens, therefore, interpreted this 
incident as meaning that the spirit of the newly-found 
Pharaoh, in its correct form of a royal cobra, had killed 
the excavator’s happiness symbolised by this song-bird 
so typical of the peace of an English home. 
At the end of the season’s work, Lord Carnarvon 
was stung mysteriously upon the face, and died. 
Millions of people throughout the world have asked 
themselves whether the death of the excavator of this 
tomb was due to some malevolent influence which came 
from it, and the story has been spread that there was a 
specific curse written upon a wall of the royal sepulchre. 


This, however, is not the case. 
136 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 137 


There are very few such curses known during the 
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties in ancient Egypt, 
that is to say, during the century or two before and after 
the time of Tutankhamen, and they are not at all com- 
mon at any Pharaonic period. 

Whenever they do appear, their object is simply to 
terrify the would-be tomb-robbers of their own epoch, 
who might smash up the mummy in their search for 
jewellery, or damage the tomb, thereby causing that loss 
of the dead man’s identity which the Egyptians thought 
would injure the welfare of his spirit in the Underworld. 
The mummy and the tomb were the earthly home of the 
disembodied spirit, and to wreck either was to render 
the spirit homeless and nameless. On the other hand, 
to enter a tomb for the purpose of renewing the dead 
man’s memory was always considered by the Egyptians 
to be a most praiseworthy proceeding; and inscriptions 
are often found on the wall of a sepulchre stating that 
some friendly hand had been at work there, setting 
things to rights after a lapse of many years. 

As an example of one of these curses, I will give here 
the translation of an inscription which is written upon a 
mortuary-statue of a certain Ursu, a mining engineer 
who lived less than a hundred years before the time of 
Tutankhamen. “He who trespasses upon my prop- 
erty,” he says, “or who shall injure my tomb or drag 
out my mummy, the Sun-god shall punish him. He 
shall not bequeath his goods to his children; his heart 
shall not have pleasure in life; he shall not receive water 
(for his spirit to drink) in the tomb; and his soul shall 
be destroyed for ever.” On the wall of the tomb of 
Harkhuf, at Aswan, dating from the Sixth Dynasty, 
these words are written: “As for any man who shall 


138 TUTANKHAMEN, 


enter into this tomb . . . I will pounce upon him as on 
a bird; he shall be judged for it by the great god.” 

The fear is that the tomb or the body will be broken 
up; and thus the scientific modern excavators, whose ob- 
ject is to rescue the dead from that oblivion which the 
years have produced, might be expected to be blessed 
rather than cursed for what they do. Only the robber 
would come under the scope of the curse. If we are to 
treat these questions seriously at all, it may be said that 
in general no harm has come to those who have entered 
these ancient tombs with reverence, and with the sole 
aim of saving the dead from native pillage and their 
identity from the obliterating hand of time. 

The large number of visitors to Egypt and persons 
interested in Egyptian antiquities who believe in the 
malevolence of the spirits of the Pharaohs and their dead 
subjects, is always a matter of astonishment to me, in 
view of the fact that of all ancient people the Egyptians 
were the most kindly and, to me, the most loveable. 
Sober and thoughtful men, and matter-of-fact matrons, 
seem to vie with the lighter-minded members of society 
in recording the misfortunes which have befallen them- 
selves or their friends as a consequence of their meddling 
with the property of the dead. On all sides one hears 
tales of the trials which have come upon those who, 
owing to their possession of some antiquity or ancient 
relic, have given offence to the spirits of the old inhab- 
itants of the Nile valley. These stories are generally 
open to some natural explanation, and those tales which 
I can relate at first hand are not necessarily to be con- 
nected with black magic. I will therefore leave it to 
the reader’s taste to find an explanation for the incidents 
which I will here relate. 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 139 


In the year 1909 Lord Carnarvon, who was then 
conducting excavations in the necropolis of the nobles 
of Thebes, discovered a hollow wooden figure of a large 
black cat, which we recognised, from other examples in 
the Cairo Museum, to be the shell in which a real em- 
balmed cat was confined. ‘The figure looked more like a 
small tiger as it sat in the sunlight at the end of the pit 
in which it had been discovered, glaring at us with its 
yellow painted eyes and bristling its yellow whiskers. 
Its body was covered all over with a thick coating of 
smooth, shining pitch, and we could not at first detect 
the line along which the shell had been closed after it had 
received the mortal remains of the sacred animal within; 
but we knew from experience that the joint passed com- 
pletely round the figure—from the nose, over the top 
of the head, down the back, and along the breast—so 
that, when opened, the two sides would fall apart in 
equal halves. 

The sombre figure was carried down to the Nile and 
across the river to my house, where, by a mistake on the 
part of my Egyptian servant, it was deposited in my 
bedroom. Returning home at dead of night, I here 
found it seated in the middle of the floor directly in my 
path from the door to the matches; and for some mo- 
ments I was constrained to sit beside it, rubbing my 
shins and my head. 

I rang the bell, but receiving no answer, I walked 
to the kitchen, where I found the servants grouped dis- 
tractedly around the butler, who had been stung by a 
scorpion and was in the throes of that short but intense 
agony. Soon he passed into a state of delirium and be- 
lieved himself to be pursued by a large grey cat, a fancy 
which did not surprise me since he had so lately assisted 


140 TUTANKHAMEN 


in carrying the figure to its ill-chosen resting-place in 
my bedroom. 

At length I retired to bed, but the moonlight which 
now entered the room through the open French windows 
fell full upon the black figure of the cat; and for some 
time I lay awake watching the peculiarly weird creature 
as it stared past me at the wall. I estimated its age to 
be considerably more than three thousand years, and I 
tried to picture to myself the strange people who, in 
those distant times, had fashioned this curious coffin for 
a cat which had been to them half pet and half house- 
hold god. A branch of a tree was swaying in the night 
breeze outside, and its shadow danced to and fro over 
the face of the cat, causing the yellow eyes to open 
and shut, as it were, and the mouth to grin. Once, as 
I was dropping off to sleep, I could have sworn that it 
had turned its head to look at me; and I could see the 
sullen expression of feline anger gathering upon its 
black visage as it did so. In the distance I could hear 
the melancholy wails of the unfortunate butler implor- 
ing those around him to keep the cat away from him, 
and it seemed to me that there came a glitter into the 
eyes of the figure as the low cries echoed down the 
passage. 

At last I fell asleep, and for about an hour all was 
still. Then, suddenly, a report like that of a pistol rang 
through the room. I started up, and as I did so a large 
grey cat sprang either from or on to the bed, leapt 
across my knees, dug its claws into my hand, and dashed 
through the window into the garden. At the same mo- 
ment I saw by the light of the moon that the two sides 
of the wooden figure had fallen apart and were rocking 
themselves to a standstill upon the floor, like two great 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 141 


empty shells. Between them sat the mummified figure 
of a cat, the bandages which swathed it round being 
ripped open at the neck, as though they had been burst 
outward. 

I sprang out of bed and rapidly examined the 
divided shell; and it seemed to me that the humidity in 
the air here on the bank of the Nile had expanded the 
wood which had rested in the dry desert so long, and had 
caused the two halves to burst apart with the loud noise 
which I had heard. Then, going to the window, I 
scanned the moonlit garden; and there in the middle of 
the pathway I saw, not the grey cat which had scratched 
me, but my own pet tabby, standing with arched back 
and bristling fur, glaring into the bushes, as though she 
saw ten feline devils therein. 

I will leave the reader to decide whether the grey cat 
was the malevolent spirit which, after causing me to 
break my shins and my butler to be stung by a scorpion, 
had burst its way through the bandages and woodwork 
and had fled into the darkness; or whether the torn em- 
balming cloths represented the natural destructive 
work of Time, and the grey cat was a night-wanderer 
which had strayed into my room and had been frightened 
by the easily-explained bursting apart of the two sides 
of the ancient Egyptian figure. Coincidence is a factor 
in life not always sufficiently considered; and the events 
I have related can be explained in a perfectly natural 
manner, if one be inclined to do so. ; 

My next story tells how a little earthenware lamp 
once in my possession brought misfortune upon at least 
two persons. 

It sometimes happens that people who have visited 
Egypt and have there purchased a few trifling antiqui- 


142 TUTANKHAMEN 


ties are suddenly seized with the fear that these relics 
are bringing them bad luck; and, in a moment of frenzy, 
they pack up their Egyptian purchases, and post them 
back to the Nile. When I was Inspector-General of 
Antiquities they not infrequently used to address these 
parcels to me or to my office at Luxor; and without 
further consideration the objects were laid away on the 
shelves of the store-room, where soon the dust gathered 
upon them and they were forgotten. 

Now it chanced that a little earthenware lamp was 
once returned to me in this manner; and, happening to 
mention the fact to some friends, I learnt that it had 
been returned by a lady who declared herself dogged 
with misfortune ever since it came into her possession, 
and who had often stated that she intended to get rid of 
it by sending it back to the unoffending official in charge 
of antiquities. I cannot now recall the series of mis- 
fortunes which had occurred to the owner of the lamp, 
but I remember that they included little incidents such 
as the spilling of a bottle of ink over her dress. I paid, 
of course, small attention to the matter, and the lamp 
lay unnoticed on the shelf for a year or more. 

One day, a certain royal lady who was travelling 
in Kgypt asked me to give her some trifle as a souvenir 
of her visit; and, without recalling its history to my 
mind, I gave her the unlucky lamp, which, so far as I 
know, did not bring any particular ill-fortune to its 
owner. There the matter would have tamely ended, had 
it not been for a chance conversation on the subject of 
unlucky antiquities, which occurred one night at a 
dinner-party in London. One of the ladies present told 
me a long story of the ill-luck from which she had suf- 
fered during the whole time in which she was the owner 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 148 


of a little earthenware lamp which came from Egypt. 
To such a state of apprehension had she been brought, 
she said, by the intuitive feeling that this little antiquity 
was the cause of her troubles, that at last she went down 
to the Embankment and hurled it into the Thames. 

Vague recollections of the story of the unlucky lamp 
which I had given to our illustrious visitor began to stir 
in my mind, and I asked with some interest how she 
came into possession of the malevolent object. Her 
reply confirmed my suspicions. ‘The lamp had been 
given to her by the royal lady to whom I had presented 
it as a souvenir! 

Most people have heard the story of the malevolent 
“mummy” in the British Museum. As a matter of fact, 
it is not a mummy at all, but simply a portion of the 
lid of a coffin. It was bequeathed to the museum after 
it had wrought havoc wherever it went, but now it is said 
to confine its dangerous attentions to those visitors who 
are disrespectful to it. A lady of my acquaintance told 
me that she had “been rude” to it, with the startling 
result that she fell headlong down the great staircase 
and sprained her ankle. There is also the well-known 
case of a journalist who wrote about it in jest, and was 
dead in a few days. 

The originator of the whole affair was the late Mr. 
Douglas Murray, who told me the following facts. He 
purchased the coffin some time in the ’sixties, and no 
sooner had he done so than he lost his arm, owing to 
the explosion of his gun. The ship in which the coffin 
was sent home was wrecked, as also was the cab in which 
it was driven from the docks; the house in which it was 
deposited was burnt down; and the photographer who 
made a picture of it shot himself. A lady who had some 


144 TUTANKHAMEN 


connection with it suffered great family losses, and was 
wrecked at sea shortly afterwards, her life being saved, 
so she told me, only by the fact that she clung to a rock 
for the greater part of a night. The list of accidents 
and misfortunes charged to the spirit which is connected 
with this coffin is now of enormous length, a fact which 
is not surprising, since persons who have seen the coffin 
attribute all their subsequent troubles to its baneful 
influence, and misfortunes in this life are not so rare 
that they can be counted on the five fingers. Personally, 
I think that, if these matters are to be considered at all, 
we should attempt rather to incur this restless spirit’s 
benediction by refusing to credit it with an evil purpose. 

The veracity of the next story cannot be questioned. 
A photograph in my possession, about which there is no 
fake, tells the tale more accurately than could any words 
of mine; and there can be no getting away from the fact 
that a shadowy human face has come between the camera 
and the object which was being photographed. The 
facts are as follows. 

Some years ago we were making excavations in the 
tomb of aGreat Vizir of about B.c. 1350, when we came 
upon a highly decorated coffin of a certain priest, which, 
by the style of the workmanship, appeared to date from 
some two hundred years later, and evidently must have 
been buried there by unscrupulous undertakers who 
opened up the original tomb for its reception in order 
to save themselves the trouble of making a new sepul- 
chre. Now this act of desecration might be thought 
to have called down upon the intruding mummy the 
wrath of the Vizir’s spirit, whose body was probably 
ousted to make room for the newcomer; but, whether 
this be so or not, those who believe in these powers might 








THE FAMOUS STATUE OF SEKHMET AT KARNAK AFTER 
HAVING BEEN SMASHED BY A NATIVE WHO BELIEVED IN 
ITS MALEVOLENCE 


It was later restored. 





THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 145 


have reason to suppose that the priestly usurper lay 
restlessly in his coffin, retaining, in place of the usual 
quiescence of the dead, a continued activity which caused 
an atmosphere of malignity to linger around his mortal 
remains. 

As soon as the coffin and mummy were deposited in 
my store-room, I began to feel an unaccountable sense 
of apprehension whenever I stood in its presence; and 
every time I opened the door of the room to enter its 
dark recesses I glanced uneasily at the embalmed figure 
which lay in the now lidless coffin, as though expecting 
it to do me some injury. This appeared to me to be re- 
markable, for I had long been accustomed to the pres- 
ence all around me of the embalmed dead. I had slept 
night after night in the tombs, sharing their comfortable 
shelter with the human remains which still lay therein; 
I had, during a dahabiyeh trip in the south, filled the 
cabin bunkers with the skulls and bones of the dead and 
had worked and slept contentedly in their company; I 
had eaten many a luncheon on the lid of a not empty 
coffin. But this particular mummy seemed to draw my 
eyes towards it, so that when I was at work in the room 
in which it lay, I caught myself glancing over my shoul- 
der in its direction. 

At length I decided to unwrap the bandages in which 
the mummy was rolled, and to look upon the face of the 
dead man who had now begun to haunt my thoughts, 
after which I proposed to send both it and the coffin 
down to the Cairo Museum. The process of unwrapping 
was lengthy, for of course many notes had to be taken 
and photographs made at the different stages of the pro- 
ceedings; but at last it was completed, and the body was 
placed in the packing-case in which it was to travel. 


146 TUTANKHAMEN 


Some of the linen cloths which had covered the face were 
of such beautifully fine texture that I took them into the 
house to show them to the friends who were staying with 
me at the time; and one of the servants, shortly after- 
wards, placed them upon a shelf in a bedroom wardrobe. 

Now it happened that this room was occupied by a 
lady and her little girl, and a day or two later, while 
the body still lay in the portico outside the house, and 
the ancient linen still rested upon the shelf inside the 
room, the child was seized with violent illness. There 
followed some days of anxiety, and at length one morn- 
ing, when the doctor’s visit had left us distraught with 
anxiety, the mother of the invalid came to me with a 
haggard face, holding in her hands the embalmer’s linen. 
“Here,” she cried, with an intensity which I shall not 
soon forget, “take this horrible stuff and burn it; and 
for goodness’ sake send that mummy away, or the child 
will die.” 

The mummy and its linen went down to Cairo that 
night, and the little girl in due course recovered; but 
when, a month or two later, I developed the photo- 
graphs which I had taken of the unwrapped body, there, 
between it and my camera, stared a shadowy face. It 
is possible that I took two photographs upon one plate; 
I do not remember, but that, and the state of my nerves, 
due to overwork, may account for all that happened. 

I am minded now to relate an experience which be- 
fell me when I was conducting excavations in the desert 
behind the ancient city of Abydos. The tale does not 
deal with any very particular malevolence of any spirit 
of the past, but it bears sufficiently closely upon that 
subject to be recorded here. We were engaged in clear- 
ing out a vertical tomb-shaft which had been cut through 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 147 


the rock underlying the sandy surface of the desert. 
The shaft was about ten foot square; and by the end of 
the second day’s work we had cleared out the sand and 
stones, wherewith it was filled, to the depth of some 
twenty feet. At sunset I gave the order to stop work 
for the night, and I was about to set out on my walk 
back to the camp when the foreman came to tell me that, 
with the last strokes of the pick, a mummied hand had 
been laid bare, and it was evident that we were about 
to come upon an interred body. 

By lamplight, therefore, the work was continued; 
and presently we had uncovered the sand-dried body 
of an old woman, who by her posture appeared to have 
met with a violent death. It was evident that this did 
not represent the original burial in the tomb, the bottom 
of the shaft not yet having been reached; and I con- 
jectured that the corpse before us had been thrown 
from above at some more recent date—perhaps in Ro- 
man times—when the shaft was but half full of debris, 
and in course of time had become buried by blown sand 
and natural falls of rock. 

The workmen were now waiting for their evening 
meal, but I, on the*other hand, was anxious to examine 
the body and its surroundings carefully, in order to see 
whether any objects of interest were to be found. I 
therefore sent all but one of the men back to the camp, 
and descended into the shaft by means of a rope ladder, 
carrying with me a hurricane lamp to light my search. 
In the flickering rays of the lamp the body looked par- 
ticularly gruesome. ‘The old woman lay upon her back, 
her arms outstretched upwards, as though they had 
stiffened thus in some convulsion, the fingers being 
locked together. Her legs were thrust outwards rigidly, 


148 TUTANKHAMEN 


and the toes were cramped and bent. The features of 
the face were well preserved, as was the whole body; and 
long black hair descended to her bony shoulders in a 
tangled mass. Her mouth was wide open, the two rows 
of teeth gleaming savagely in the uncertain light, and 
the hollow eye-sockets seemed to stare upwards, as 
though fixed upon some object of horror. I do not sup- 
pose that it is often man’s lot to gaze upon so ghastly a 
spectacle, and it was only the fact of the extreme an- 
tiquity of the body which made it possible for me to look 
with equanimity upon it; for the centuries that had 
passed since the occurrence of this woman’s tragedy 
seemed to have removed the element of personal affinity 
which sets the living shuddering at the dead. 

Just as I was completing my search I felt a few 
drops of rain fall, and at the same time realised that the 
wind was howling and whistling above me and that the 
stars were shut out by dense clouds. A rain storm in 
Upper Egypt is a very rare occurrence, and generally 
it is of a tropical character. If I left the body at the 
bottom of the shaft, I thought to myself, it would be 
soaked and destroyed; and since, as a specimen, it was 
well worth preserving, I decided to carry it to the sur- 
face, where there was a hut in which it could be sheltered. 
I lifted the body from the ground, and found it tobe 
quite light, but at the same time not at all fragile. I 
called out to the man whom I had told to wait for me 
on the surface, but received no reply. Either he had 
misunderstood me and gone home, or else the noise of 
the wind prevented my voice from reaching him. Large 
spots of rain were now falling, and there was no time for 
hesitation. I therefore lifted the body on to my back, 
the two outstretched arms passing over my shoulders 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 149 


and the linked fingers clutching, as it were, at my chest. 
I then began to climb up the rope ladder, and as I did so 
I noticed with something of a qualm that the old 
woman’s face was peeping at me over my right shoulder 
and her teeth seemed about to bite my right ear. 

I had climbed about half the distance when my foot 
dislodged a fragment of rock from the side of the shaft, 
and, as luck would have it, the stone fell right upon the 
lamp, smashing the glass and putting the light out. The 
darkness in which I found myself was intense, and now 
the wind began to buffet me and to hurl the sand into 
my face. With my right hand I felt for the woman’s 
head and shoulder, in order to hitch the body more 
firmly on to my back, but to my surprise my hand found 
nothing there. At the same moment I became conscious 
that the hideous face was grinning at me over my left 
shoulder, my movements, I suppose, having shifted it; 
and, without further delay, I blundered and scrambled 
to the top of the shaft in a kind of panic. 

No sooner had I reached the surface than I at- 
tempted to relieve myself of my burden. 'The wind was 
now screaming past me and the rain was falling fast. 
I put my left hand up to catch hold of the corpse’s 
shoulder, and to my dismay found that the head had 
slipped round once more to my right, and the face was 
peeping at me from that side. I tried to remove the 
arms from around my neck, but, with ever-increasing 
horror, I found that the fingers had caught in my coat 
and seemed to be holding on to me. A few moments of 
struggle ensued, and at last the fingers released their 
grip. Thereupon the body swung round so that we 
stood face to face, the withered arms still around my 
neck, and the teeth grinning at me through the dark- 


150 TUTANKHAMEN 


ness. A moment later I was free, and the body fell 
back from me, hovered a moment, as it were, in mid air, 
and suddenly disappeared from sight. It was then that 
I realised that we had been struggling at the very edge 
of the shaft, down which the old woman had now fallen, 
and near which some will say that she had been wildly 
detaining me. 

Fortunately the rain soon cleared off, so there was 
no need to repeat the task of bringing the gruesome ob- 
ject to the surface. Upon the next morning we found 
the body quite uninjured, lying at the bottom of the 
shaft, in almost precisely the position in which we had 
discovered it; and it is now exhibited in the museum of 
one of the medical institutes of London. 

Most people who have visited Upper Egypt will be 
familiar with the lioness-headed statue of Sekhmet 
which is to be seen in the small temple of Ptah, at 
Karnak. Tourists usually make a point of entering 
the sanctuary in which it stands by moonlight or star- 
light, for then the semi-darkness adds in an extraordi- 
nary manner to the dignity and mystery of the figure, 
and one feels disposed to believe the goddess not yet 
bereft of all power. Sekhmet was the agent employed 
by the sun-god, Ra, in the destruction of mankind; 
and she thus had a sinister reputation in olden times. 
This has clung to her in a most persistent manner, and 
to this day the natives say that she has the habit of kill- 
ing little children. When the statue was discovered 
a few years ago, a fall of earth just in front of her 
terminated the lives of two of the small boys who were 
engaged in the work, a fact which, not surprisingly, has 
been quoted as an indication of the malevolence of the 
spirit which resides in this impressive figure of stone. 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 151 


One hears it now quite commonly said that those who 
offend the goddess when visiting her are pursued by ill- 
fortune for weeks afterwards. 

It actually became the custom for English and 
American ladies to leave their hotels after dinner and 
to hasten into the presence of the goddess, there to sup- 
plicate her and to appease her with fair words. On one 
of these occasions, a few years ago, a well-known lady 
threw herself upon her knees before the statue, and 
rapturously holding her hands aloft, cried out, “I be- 
lieve, I believe!” while a friend of hers passionately 
kissed the stone hand and patted the somewhat ungainly 
feet. On other occasions lamps were burnt before the 
goddess and a kind of ritual was mumbled by an en- 
thusiastic gentleman; while a famous French lady of 
letters, who was a victim of the delusion that she 
possessed ventriloquial powers, made mewing noises, 
which were supposed to emanate from the statue, and 
which certainly added greatly to the barbaric nature of 
the scene. So frequent did these séances become that 
at last I had to put an official stop to them, and there- 
after it was deemed an infringement of the rules to 
placate the malevolent goddess in this manner. There 
she stands alone, smiling mysteriously at her visitors, 
who are invariably careful not to arouse her anger by 
smiling back. A native, who probably believed himself 
to be under her ban, burgled his way, one summer’s 
night, into the sanctuary and knocked her head and 
shoulders off; but the archxologist in charge cemented 
them on again, and thus she continues as before to dole 
out misfortune to those who credit her with that ill 
desire. 

During the winter of 1908-9 the well-known Bos- 


152 TUTANKHAMEN 


tonian painter and pageant-master, Joseph Lindon 
Smith, and his wife, were staying with my wife and my- 
self in our house on the banks of the Nile, at Luxor, the 
modern town which has grown up on the site of the once 
mighty “hundred-gated Thebes,” the old capital of 
Egypt. It was our custom to spend a great part of our 
time amongst the ruins on the western side of the Nile, 
for my work made it necessary for me to give constant 
attention to the excavations which were there being con- 
ducted, and to supervise the elaborate system of policing 
and safeguarding, which is nowadays in force for the 
protection of the many historical and artistic treasures 
there on view. Mr. Smith, also, had painting work to do 
amongst the tombs; while the ladies of our party amused 
themselves in the hundred different ways which are so 
readily suggested in these beautiful and romantic sur- 
roundings. 

Sometimes we used to camp the night amongst the 
tombs, the tents pitched on the side of the hill of Shékh 
abd’el Gurneh in the midst of the burial-place of the 
great nobles; and at sunset, after the tourists had all 
disappeared along the road back to Luxor, and our 
day’s occupations were ended, we were wont to set out 
for long rambling walks in the desert ravines, over the 
rocky hills, and amongst the ruined temples; nor was it 
until the hour of dinner that we made our way back to 
the lights of the camp. The grandeur of the scenery 
when darkness had fallen is indescribable. In the dim 
light reflected from the brilliant stars, the cliffs and 
rocky gorges assumed the most wonderful aspect. ‘Their 
shadows were full of mystery, and the broken pathways 
seemed to lead to hidden places barred to man’s investi- 
gation. The hills, and the boulders at their feet, took 


te tel ee ee 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 1538 


fantastic shape; and one could not well avoid the 
thought that the spirits of Egypt’s dead were at that 
hour roaming abroad, like us, amongst these illusory 
scenes. 

It was during one of these evening walks that we 
found ourselves in the famous Valley of the Tombs of 
the Queens, a rock-strewn ravine in which some of 
Egypt’s royal ladies were buried. At the end of this 
valley the cliffs close in, and an ancient torrent, long ago 
dried up, has scooped out a cavernous hollow in the face 
of the rock, into which, as into a cauldron, the waters 
must have poured as they rushed down from the hills 
at the back. The sides of the hollow form two-thirds of 
a circle, and overhead the rock somewhat overhangs. 
In front it is quite open to the valley, and as the floor 
is a level area of hard gravel, about twenty-five feet 
at its greatest breadth and depth, the hollow at once sug- 
gests to the mind a natural stage with the rocky valley 
which lies before it as the theatre. The place was well 
known to us, and in the darkness we now scrambled up 
into the deep shadows of the recess, and, sitting upon 
the gravel, stared out into the starlit valley, like ghostly 
actors playing to a deserted auditorium. The evening 
wind sighed quietly around us, and across the valley 
the dim forms of two jackals passed with hardly a 
sound. Far away over the Nile we could see, framed 
between the hills on either side of the mouth of the 
ravine, the brilliant lights of Luxor shining in the placid 
water; and these added the more to the sense of our re- 
moteness from the world and our proximity to those 
things of the night which belong to the kingdom of 
dreams. 

Presently I struck a match, in order to light my 


154 TUTANKHAMEN 


pipe, and immediately the rough face of the rocks 
around us was illuminated and made grotesque. As the 
flame flickered, the dark shadows fluttered like black 
hair in the wind, and the promontories jutted forward 
like great snouts and chins. An owl, startled by the 
light, half tumbled from its roost upon a deep ledge 
high above us and went floundering into the darkness, 
hooting like a lost soul. The match burnt out, and 
immediately blackness and silence closed once more 
about us. 

“What a stage for a play!” exclaimed the amateur 
actor-manager; and a few moments later we were all 
eagerly discussing the possibility of performing a 
ghostly drama here amongst the desert rocks. By the 
time that we had reached our camp a plot had been 
evolved which was based on the historical fact that the 
spirit of the above-mentioned Pharaoh Akhnaton was, 
so to speak, excommunicated by the priests and was 
denied the usual prayers for the dead, being thus con- 
demned to wander without home or resting-place 
throughout the years. Akhnaton, the son of the power- 
ful and beautiful Queen Tiy, reigned from B.c. 1875 to 
1858; and being disgusted with the barbarities per- 
petrated at Thebes in the name of the god Amon, and 
believing that the only true god was Aton, the life- 
giving “Energy of the Sun,” overthrew the former re- 
ligion and preached a wonderfully advanced doctrine of 
peace and love, which he associated with the worship of 
Aton. He removed his capital from Thebes to ‘The 
City of the Horizon of Aton,” and there reigned with 
his wife and children, devoting his whole energy to his 
religion and to the demonstration of his lofty teaching. 
He died at the age of about thirty years; and thereupon 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 155 


the nation unanimously returned, under Tutankhamen, 
to the worship of Amon and the old gods, whose priests 
erased the dead king’s name from the book of life. 

Here, then, was a ghost ready to hand, and here was 
our stage. The part of the young Akhnaton should be 
assigned to my wife, for his gentle character and youth- 
ful voice could better be rendered by a woman than by 
aman. Then we must bring in the beautiful Queen Tiy, 
who could well be impersonated by Mrs. Lindon Smith. 
Mr. Smith could take the part of the messenger of the 
gods, sent from the Underworld to meet the royal ghost. 
And as for myself, I would be kept busy enough, man- 
aging the lights, prompting the actors, and doing the 
odd jobs. There would have to be some weird music at 
certain moments; and for this purpose our friend, Mr. 
F. F. Ogilvie, that painter of Anglo-Egyptian fame, 
might be commandeered together with his guitar. 

On our return to Luxor we busied ourselves during 
all our spare hours in designing and making the cos- 
tumes and properties; and it fell to me to write as fast 
as I could the lines of the play. They have no merit in 
themselves; but when a few days later they were read 
over in our desert theatre, beneath the starlit heavens, 
the quiet, earnest diction of the two ladies, and the 
strange, hawk-like tones of our celebrated amateur, 
caused them to sound very mysterious and full of 
meaning. 

We now fixed the date for the performance and in- 
vated our friends to come by night to the Valley of the 
Tombs of the Queens to see the expected appearance of 
the ghost of the great Pharaoh, and a few days before 
that date we moved over once more to our desert camp. 

We rehearsed the play a few nights later, but alas! 


156 TUTANKHAMEN 


hardly had Mrs. Smith finished her introductory lines, 
when she was struck down by agonising pains in her 
eyes, and in less than two hours she had passed into a 
raving delirium. The story of how at midnight she was 
taken across the deserted fields and over the river to our 
house at Luxor, would read like the narration of a night- 
mare. Upon the next day it was decided that she must 
be sent down immediately to Cairo, for there was no 
doubt that she was suffering from ophthalmia in its 
most virulent form, and there were grave fears that she 
might lose her sight. On this same day my wife was 
smitten down with violent illness, she being ordered 
also to proceed to Cairo immediately. On the next 
morning, Mr. Smith developed a low fever, and shortly 
afterwards, I myself was laid low with influenza. Mr. 
Ogilvie, returning to his headquarters by train, came in 
for a nasty accident in which his mother’s leg was badly 
injured. And thus not one of us could have taken part 
in the production of the play on the date announced. 
For the next two or three weeks Mrs. Smith’s evzs 
and my wife’s life hung in the balance and were ~ften 
despaired of. Mercifully, however, they were oth re- 
stored in due time to perfect health; but none of us en- 
tertained any desire to undertake the rehearsals a second 
time. Many of our friends were inclined to see in our 
misfortunes the punishing hand of the gods and spirits 
of ancient Egypt; but they must not forget that the 
play was to be given in all solemnity and without the 
smallest suggestion of burlesque. For my own part, 
as I have said, I do not think that the possibilities of that 
much under-rated factor in life’s events, coincidence, 
have been exhausted in the search for an explanation 
of our tragedy; but far from me be it to offer an opinion 


A 


THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPIRITS 157 


upon the subject. I have heard the most absurd non- 
sense talked in Egypt by those who believe in the ma- 
levolence of the ancient dead; but at the same time, I 
try to keep an open mind on the subject. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN 
CHRONOLOGY 


HE discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen has 
aroused extensive interest in Egyptology, and 
books on Egyptian history and archeology have 
lately been read by large numbers of people who had 
hardly given the subject a thought before. But these 
new readers have been much confused by finding that 
Egyptologists differ very widely in the dating of the 
earlier dynasties; and they have been inclined to aban- 
don their reading altogether on learning that two such 
famous authorities, for instance, as Professor James 
Henry Breasted, of Chicago, and Professor Flinders 
Petrie, of London, differ to the extcat of over two 
thousand years in the date they ass:-gn to the beginning 
of the First Dynasty, the formey believing it to have oc- 
curred about B.c. 3400, and %ne latter about B.c. 5550. 
I think it will be useful, therefore, if I attempt to 
explain this discrepancy; but I must warn the reader 
that the subject is extremely complicated and he will 
require to give his full attention to it if he would under- 
stand it. I will endeavour, however, to state the prob- 
lem as simply as its nature permits. 
All Egyptologists agree very closely as to the dating 
of the reigns on our side of the foundation of the Eight- 
eenth Dynasty, that event being ascribed to B.c. 1587 


by Professor Petrie, and to B.c. 1580 by Professor 
158 





THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY 159 


Breasted; and the reader, therefore, has little to worry 
him from this period onwards. But in regard to the 
ages before that time, the two schools differ upon two 
distinct grounds. The first of these is as regards the 
length of the period from the Thirteenth to the Seven- 
teenth Dynasty, inclusive; and the second is in regard 
to the length of the period from the First to the Twelfth 
Dynasty, inclusive. 

Let us first consider the composition of the ancient 
Egyptian calendar. The calendar began with five 
epagomenal or intercalary days, which were celebrated 
as the birthdays of gods, the first being the birthday 
of Osiris. The remaining three hundred and sixty days 
were divided into three seasons, named Shat, Pert, and 
Shemut. The name of the first of these seasons, Shat, 
is no doubt to be identified with the same word which 
means “germination,” or “growth,” and is found with 
some frequency in the inscriptions. This season, there- 
fore, is “The Season of Growing the Crops,” as is indi- 
cated also by the fact that it is introduced by the birth 
of Osiris, who is always closely connected with the ger- 
mination of the crops. The word Pert means “to come 
forth,” or “to go out,” and it has generally been assumed 
that its use in the calendar has reference to the coming 
forth of the crops; but I would suggest another expla- 
nation of its origin. All those who have lived in Egypt 
will know how the fellahin, or peasants, go out into the 
fields and take up their residence there in temporary 
booths (in Egyptian, per) during harvest-time. To 
the agricultural classes it is the great annual event, and 
it may well be expected to have given the name to the 
season. Pert, then, is probably “The Season of Going 
Out into the Fields.” The word Shemut originally 


160 TUTANKHAMEN 


meant the “Inundation,” though it came to be used for 
“summer,” and “harvest,” and this season is thus nomi- 
nally “The Season of the Inundation.” 

This Egyptian calendar is seen, therefore, to be one 
based on the natural conditions of life in the Nile valley 
as they affected an agricultural people, such as were 
the ancient Egyptians. It was a farmers’ calendar; 
the first season being Shat, originally from the middle 
of November to the middle of March, when the floods 
of the Nile had left the fields, and the sowing of the 
crops took place; the second being Pert, originally from 
the middle of March to the middle of July, when the 
harvests were reaped; and the third season being She- 
mut, originally from the middle of July to the middle of 
November, when the river was in flood and inundated 
the land. 

Each of these three seasons was divided into four 
months of thirty days. In late Egyptian, or Coptic, 
times these months were given names; but in the days 
of the Pharaohs they were called simply the First, 
Second, Third or Fourth month of one of the three sea- 
sons. ‘The calendar was thus, as follows:— 


Ancient Egyptian name. Coptic name. 
1 First month of Shat, or Season of 
GrOWING miuete aan ees? te. «fare Mesore 
2 Second month of Shat............ Thoth 
8) Chird? monthfoteshatnc. 4. 1.0% 2 Paopi 
4 Fourth month of Shat............ Hathor 
5 First mouth of Pert, or Season of 
Gomps Qube cs. on acticin. Khoiak 
6 Second month of Pert............ Tobi 


7 eel hird, montnotmneeta... 1a ;. Mekhir 








THE AVENUE OF RAM HEADED SPHINXES IN FRONT OF THE 
MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK 








THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY 161 


Ancient Egyptian name. Coptic name. 
8 Fourth month of Pert..... ne eee Phamenoth 
9 First month of Shemut, or Season 

OLA OONCY)<ceaiotys tna iy fe «x. Pharmuth 

10 Second month of Shemut.......... Pakhons 

11 Third month of Shemut.......... Paoni 

12 Fourth month of Shemut......... Epephi 


After the Eighteenth Dynasty and down to the 
Roman period, the epagomenal days were placed be- 
tween Mesore and Thoth; and Thoth thus would have 
been identified with the first month of Shat, while 
Mesore would be the fourth month of Shemut. But the 
form of the calendar shown above is that in which the 
Egyptian of the Eighteenth Dynasty and earlier knew 
it, though, as I have said, the Coptic names of the 
months had not yet been applied, so far as we know. 
The earliest record of the calendar in this form is found 
in an inscription of the time of King Userkaf, at the be- 
ginning of the Fifth Dynasty, and in it the five epa- 
gomenal days are shown as coming after the season of 
Shemut and before that of Shat, which is placed as the 
first season. 

This ancient agricultural calendar was, except at 
its beginning, merely a nominal method of recording 
the months, for, owing to this loss of one day in every 
four years, it only coincided with actual conditions every 
1460 years. But there was another calendar, or, rather, 
another method of fixing the beginning of the year, 
which was also in use; for, at an early date, the Egyptian 
astronomers had discovered that the heliacal rising of 
the planet Sothis, or Sirius, each summer coincided with 
the rise of the Nile. It is true that the Sothic year and 


162 TUTANKHAMEN 


the ordinary solar year are not absolutely of the same 
length; but the divergence is so slight that it was then 
not noticed. The annual festival of the Rising of 
Sothis, coincidental with the coming of the floods, there- 
fore, came to be celebrated as New Year’s Day; but it 
coincided with the beginning of the nominal Season of 
Flood in the shifting official calendar only once in every 
1460 years. 

It will be seen, then, that if we can fix the date of any 
year in which the annual rising of Sothis, or Sirius, co- 
incides with a definite day in the Egyptian calendar 
year, we can at once obtain the date of any recorded 
Sothic rising—with this qualification, however, that the 
coincidence recurs every 1460 years, and that therefore 
our date may be 1460 years too early or too late. 
Fortunately this date can be fixed, for we know from a 
well-determined observation reported by Censorinus, 
that in or about that year A.D. 189 the Sothic year began 
on the first day of the first Egyptian calendar month, 
at that time Thoth. 

Bearing in mind that the month Thoth in earlier 
times was not the first but the second month, that is to 
say that the five epagomenal days have to be shifted, 
which throws the dating back by 120 years, it is not diffi- 
cult to make the required calculations; and Professor 
Petrie has published in Volume II of his Historical 
Studies (1911) a diagram made by Mr. E. B. Knobel, 
by means of which the date in our months and years of 
any ancient Egyptian calendar date, and any rising of 
Sothis, can be found at a glance. 

Now, there is, in the Ebers Papyrus, a record of 
the heliacal rising of Sothis occurring on the ninth day 
of the third month of the season of Shemut, in the ninth 


THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY 163 


year of Amenhotep I, of the Eighteenth Dynasty; and 
this can thus be fixed to about the year B.c. 1548. And 
in the Kahun Papyrus there is a record of the same 
event occurring on the seventeenth day of the fourth 
month of the season of Pert, in the seventh year of the 
reign of Senusert ILI, of the Twelfth Dynasty; and, 
similarly, this can be fixed to about B.c. 2000, or else to 
1460 years earlier, ie., B.c. 8460. So little is known 
about the period between the end of the Twelfth 
Dynasty and the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, 
that there is room for question as to which of these two 
dates for Senusert III is to be adopted. Professor 
Petrie believes in the longer period; but the majority 
of Egyptologists believe in the shorter. I, personally, 
am amongst the latter. 

The history of this intervening period is very con- 
fused. The ancient historian Manetho, and the list of 
kings in the famous Turin Papyrus, both point to the 
longer period; for each records the names of a large 
number of kings who reigned during this dark age. On 
the other hand, the small number of monuments now 
known belonging to this intermediate period, and the 
similarity of manners, customs, and styles of workman- 
ship prevailing in the latter part of the Twelfth and 
earlier part of the Eighteenth Dynasty strongly sug- 
gest the shorter reckoning. The great stela of 
Ahmose I, found at Abydos, for instance, shows that 
the work of the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty 
is remarkably like that of the Twelfth. 

Perhaps the short genealogy of some family will 
be found linking these two dynasties, and thus proving 
the shorter period to be correct; or perhaps a series of 
monuments covering a great part of the disputed era 


164 TUTANKHAMEN 


will be brought to light, and will settle the question; or, 
again, excavation in Syria or Mesopotamia may show 
some early Egyptian dynasty to be contemporaneous 
with an epoch in those lands, the date of which is known. 
But, in the absence of such material, Egyptologists are 
at present on the look-out for some calendar date of a 
seasonal or astronomical event, which will fit in with, 
and prove, the one dating or the other. I will give here 
two instances of the occurrence of such events, in order 
to show the reader the kind of evidence which is being 
sought. 

In a tomb at El-Bersheh, in Middle Egypt, a certain 
Thutnakht, who lived at the beginning of the Twelfth 
Dynasty, records the fact that the flax harvest was 
reaped in the last quarter of the fourth month of Shat. 
Now, according to the shorter reckoning, the date of the 
foundation of the Twelfth Dynasty is B.c. 2120; and 
reference to Mr. Knobel’s diagrams shows that the end 
of the fourth month of Shat at that date corresponds to 
about the tenth of April. According to Professor 
Petrie’s reckoning, the Twelfth Dynasty began in B.c. 
3580; and at that time the end of the fourth month of 
Shat, according to the diagram, fell in the last week 
of March. The flax harvest is generally reaped in Mid- 
dle Egypt about the end of March, or beginning of 
April; and thus the balance is here slightly in favour 
of the longer dating, but the evidence is not very con- 
clusive. 

In the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus there is a state- 
ment that on the third day of the first month (of Shat) 
in the second year of the reign of Ausserra Apepi I, of 
the Fifteenth Dynasty, there was rain, and the voice of 
the god was heard, that is to say, probably, it thundered. 


THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY 165 


According to Professor Petrie the date is about 
B.C. 2370, at which time the beginning of the first month 
fell about February 20th. According to the shorter 
reckoning the date is about B.c. 1700, at which time the 
day in question coincides with the middle of September. 
Professor Petrie argues that rain and thunder are com- 
mon in February, but are unknown in September, and 
that therefore we must accept the longer reckoning. 
But actually the evidence is inconclusive, for I, myself, 
have known thunder and rain in September in Egypt. 

These two instances will show the difficulty of ob- 
taining evidence of this kind, which will settle the ques- 
tion of the length of the period between the Twelfth and 
Eighteenth Dynasty. Jet us now consider the second 
part of the controversy, namely, that in regard to the 
length of the period between the First and the Twelfth 
Dynasty. 

The difference of opinion arises in the main from 
the question as to whether Manetho’s lists are to be 
accepted or not. By adding up the reigns of the kings, 
with Manetho’s history as a basis, Professor Petrie 
comes to the conclusion that this period covered about 
twenty-two centuries. Most of the other EKgyptologists, 
on the other hand, disallow many years not accounted 
for by actual monuments, and make the total period not 
more than about sixteen centuries. Thus, in dealing 
with this epoch, the difference of opinion is not confined 
to the 1460 years of the Sothic cycle, but, added to that, 
we have another six hundred years or so in dispute. 

Let us, as before, take two instances in which sea- 
sonal dates recorded in contemporary inscriptions are 
used as arguments on the one side or the other; but we 
shall find them once more inconclusive. 


166 TUTANKHAMEN 


Professor Petrie uses an ingenious argument de- 
rived from the quarrying-dates inscribed on the stones 
of the Pyramid of Meidim. The few stones which were 
able to be examined were inscribed with dates covering 
the period from the sixth to the eleventh months of the 
year. This pyramid was built during the reign of Sne- 
feru, whose date, according to the longer reckoning is 
about B.c. 4750, and according to the shorter, about 
B.c. 8000. Now, in B.c. 4750 these Egyptian months 
coincided with the period between March and August; 
and Professor Petrie argues that this is the likely time 
for quarrying, the blocks being thus able to be trans- 
ported across the floods of the inundation in September 
and October. But in B.c. 3000 these months corre- 
sponded to the period between January and the end of 
May; and one may just as well argue that that would be 
the natural time for quarrying, during the cool weather, 
and that the work would certainly have been shut down 
during the height of summer. Nothing, therefore, can 
be derived from these quarry-marks. 

In the Sixth Dynasty a certain Una describes how 
his king, Merenra I, ordered him to quarry a large 
offering-table of alabaster from the hills near Tell-el- 
Amana, and to convey it to the royal pyramid at Sak- 
kara. The work was executed at express speed, as he 
states, “in the third month of Shemut, although there 
was no flood-water on the land,” over which to float it. 
According to the shorter reckoning, the event occurred 
about B.c. 2690, at which time the third month of Shemut 
corresponded to March. The inundation, it will be re- 
membered, is in the autumn. According to the longer 
reckoning, the season corresponded from the middle of 
February to the middle of March. Nothing definite, 


THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY § 167 


therefore, can be deduced from this argument, although 
it is often used. 

I come now to a very interesting piece of evidence, 
wnich though not helping us to decide whether the 
longer or the shorter reckoning is correct, shows us the 
state of the calendar at the beginning of the Fifth Dy- 
nasty. In the Cairo Museum there is a table of offer- 
ings belonging to a Superintendent of the Scribes, 
named Sethu, which comes from a tomb at Gizeh, num- 
bered by Reisner G.4710. This tomb dates from about 
the end of the Fourth or beginning of the Fifth Dy- 
nasty, which, according to the longer reckoning, is about 
B.C. 4500, and, according to the shorter, about B.c. 2870. 

Cut into this offering-table there is a small tank, 
having three steps around it. On the lowest step is 
written: “Season of Shemut, height 22 cubits”; on the 
middle step: “Season of Pert, height 23 cubits”; and on 
the top step: “Season of Shat, height 25 cubits.” It is 
obvious that these figures refer to the height of the 
water in the tank, consequent upon the state of the Nile, 
and the table must have served, thus, as a petition, or 
thank-offering, for the best possible river levels through- 
out the year. But these inscriptions show that, at that 
date, the lowest river levels occurred in the season of 
Shemut, or Inundation, and the highest flood levels in 
the season of Shat, or Growing. 

Referring to the diagrams, we see that in B.c. 4500 
Shemut corresponded to the period between the middle 
of March and the middle of July; and in B.c. 2870 to the 
period between the beginning of March and the end of 
June. Either of these periods cover the time of the 
lowest Nile. Again, in B.c. 4500, Shat corresponds to 
the period between the middle of July and the middle 


168 TUTANKHAMEN 


of November; and in B.c. 2870 to the period between the 
beginning of July and the end of October. Both these 
periods cover the time of the highest Nile. 

The point to be observed is that at the beginning of 
the Fifth Dynasty the calendar had shifted round, by 
the loss of one day in every four years, until the season 
of Shemut, or Inundation, fell in the time of the actual 
harvest, and the season of Shat, or the growing time of 
the crops, fell in the period of the actual inundation. 
This means to say that this calendar must have been 
first established much earlier, at a time when the be- 
ginning of the season of Shemut, or Inundation, co- 
incided with the actual rising of the Nile, in July, which 
it did in B.c. 3400, 4900, and 6400. 

Those who accept the longer dating will probably 
take B.c. 4900 as the date of the establishment of the 
calendar, which date, according to that reckoning, falls 
in the middle of the Third Dynasty—quite a likely age 
for it. Those who believe in the shorter period, will re- 
gard B.c. 8400 as the date of the origin of this calendar, 
which, according to them, falls in the middle of the First 
Dynasty—an even more likely date for it. 

So much for the agricultural calendar; but when did 
the rising of Sothis, which was coincident with the an- 
nual rise of the Nile, come to be regarded as the be- 
ginning of the year? It must have been, surely, at a 
time when the Sothic “New Year’s Day” and the New 
Year’s Day of the agricultural calendar happened to 
be simultaneous, that is to say, when the rising of Sothis 
and the coming of the floods coincided with one of the 
five epagomenal days, or with the first day of the first 
month of Shat. This coincidence occurred in about 
B.C. 2900, 4860, and 5820. 


THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY 169 


Those who accept the longer dating will attribute 
this event to B.c. 4360, when, according to them, the 
Fifth Dynasty was at its height, or to B.c. 5820, when 
the kings of what is called Dynasty O. (i.e., before the 
First Dynasty) were reigning. Those who believe in 
the shorter dating will rather say that it occurred in 
B.C.2900, which, to them, falls in the reign of Mykerinos, 
the builder of the Third Pyramid, just after the time of 
Khephren and the making of the Sphinx. Professor 
Breasted, however, goes back a cycle of 1460 years, and 
places it in B.c. 4360,* some 800 years before the 
beginning of the First Dynasty, a rather improbable 
conjecture. 

If we accept the shorter dating, then, we see that an 
agricultural calendar was established in the First Dy- 
nasty and that it began with the season of Shat, the sea- 
son, nominally, when the flood-waters had left the fields 
and the work of preparing the ground commenced— 
which is obviously the natural time for the working year 
to begin in Egypt. The Sothic year, however, began 
with the rise of the Nile and the simultaneous heliacal 
rising of Sothis. We see that towards the end of the 
Fourth Dynasty and in the early years of the Fifth, 
the nominal beginning of the agricultural year—the 
season of Shat—had moved round until it coincided with 
the Sothic rising; and thus this rising of Sothis came to 
be called “New Year’s Day.” By the time of the 
Twelfth Dynasty the calendar had moved round until 
the end of the season of Pert, the time of harvest, co- 
incided with the rising of Sothis, that is to say, the 
calendar had nearly completed an entire cycle since its 


* The date he gives, actually, is p.c. 4240, for he has not taken into 
consideration the shift back of 120 years owing to the change of the first 
month from Thoth to Mesore. 


170 TUTANKHAMEN 


establishment. At the beginning of the Eighteenth 
Dynasty it had moved on so that now the Sothic rising 
coincided with the end of the nominal season of inunda- 
tion; and in A.D. 139 it had completed two whole cycles 
since the time of the pyramids, and the Sothic rising 
now coincided once more with the beginning of the 
calendar year. 

The reader, I dare say, will find the whole matter 
very difficult to understand; but, if that be so, he will 
the more readily appreciate the difficulty confronting 
Egyptologists, who find their dates for the Eighteenth 
and Twelfth Dynasties checked by these astronomical 
considerations, but yet cannot by this means reach a 
unity of opinion as to whether an extra Sothic cycle 
should be added between these two dynasties. Person- 
ally, I take the view that three centuries or so is a quite 
sufficient time to allow for the Thirteenth to Seven- 
teenth Dynasties, and I think it inconceivable that 
nearly 1800 years could have elapsed between the end 
of the Twelfth and beginning of the Eighteenth Dynas- 
ties, as Professor Petrie would have us think. Let us 
hope that some new facts, astronomical or otherwise, 
will soon be found to prove the one school or the other 
right. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE EASTERN DESERT AND ITS 
INTERESTS 


ing a certain explorer’s description of a journey 

across the burning Sahara, he found to his amaze- 
ment that his nose was covered with freckles. The 
reader will perhaps remember how, on some rainy day 
in his childhood, he has sat over the fire and has read 
sea-stories and dreamed sea-dreams until his lips, he 
will swear, have tasted salt. Alas, my little agility in 
the art of narration is wholly inadequate for the produc- 
tion, at this time of life, of any such phenomena upon 
the gentle skins of those who chance to read these pages. 
Were I a master-maker of literature, I might herewith 
lead the imaginative so straight into the boisterous 
breezes of Egypt, I might hold them so entranced in 
the sunlight which streams over the desert, that they 
would feel, wherever they might be seated, the tingling 
glow of the sun and the wind upon their cheeks, and 
would hold their hands to their eyes as a shelter from 
the glare. The walls of their rooms would fall flat as 
those of Jericho; and outside they would meet the ad- 
vancing host of the invaders—the sunshine, the north 
wind, the scudding clouds, the circling vultures, the 
glistening sand, the blue shadows, and the rampant 
rocks. And the night closing over the sack of their city, 


they would see the moonlight, the brilliant stars, the 
171 


| KNOW a young man who declares that after read- 


172 TUTANKHAMEN 


fluttering bats, the solemn owls; they would hear the 
wailing of the hyenas and the barking of the dogs in 
the distant camps. If I only possessed the ability, I 
might weave such a magic carpet for those who knew 
how to ride upon it, that, deserting the fallen Jericho 
of their habitation, they would fly to the land of the 
invaders which they had seen, and there they would be 
kept as spell-bound and dazzled by the eyes of the wil- 
derness as ever a child was dazzled by a tale of the sea. 

But with this ability lacking it is very doubtful 
whether the reader will be able to appreciate my mean- 
ing; and, without the carpet, it is a far cry to Upper 
Egypt. Nevertheless, I will venture to give an account, 
in the next few chapters, of some journeys made in the 
Upper Egyptian desert, in the hope rather of arousing 
interest in a fascinating country than of placing on 
record much information of value to science; although 
the reader interested in Egyptian archeology will find 
some new material upon which to speculate. 

The Upper Egyptian desert is a country known 
only to a very few. The resident, as well as the visitor, 
in Egypt raises his eyes from the fertile valley of the 
Nile to the bare hills, and lowers them once more with 
the feeling that he has looked at the wall of the garden, 
the boundary of the land. ‘There is, however, very much 
to be seen and studied behind this wall; and those who 
penetrate into the solitudes beyond will assuredly find 
themselves in a world of new colours, new forms, and 
new interests. In the old days precious metal was 
sought here, ornamental stone was quarried, trade- 
routes passed through to the Red Sea, and the soldiery 
of Egypt, and later of Rome, marched from station to 
station amidst its hills. The desert as one sees it now 


THK EASTERN DESERT 173 


is, so to speak, peopled with the ghosts of the Old 
World; and on hidden hill-slopes or in obscure valleys 
one meets with the remains of ancient settlements scat- 
tered through the length and breadth of the country. 

The number of persons who have had the energy to 
climb the garden wall and to wander into this great 
wilderness is so small that one might count the names 
upon the fingers. Lepsius, the German Egyptologist, 
passed over some of the routes on which antiquities were 
to be met with; Golenischeff, the Russian Egyptologist, 
checked some of his results; Schweinfurth, the great 
German explorer, penetrated to many of the unknown 
localities and mapped a great part of the country; 
Bellefonds Bey, the Director-General of Public Works 
in Egypt, under Mohammed Ali, made a survey of the 
mineral belt lying between the river and the Red Sea; 
and during the last thirty years various prospectors and 
miners have visited certain points of interest to them. 
Before the war, the Government Survey Department 
was engaged in mapping this Eastern Desert, and most 
valuable reports were published; while for a few years 
there existed a Mines Department, whose director, Mr. 
John Wells, made himself acquainted with some of the 
routes and most of the mining centres. Thus, most of 
the journeys here to be recorded have not been made 
over absolutely new ground; though, except for reports 
of the Survey Department’s explorers, and some papers 
by Schweinfurth, it would be a difficult matter to un- 
earth any literature on the subject. Even so, however, 
in describing these journeys I have often been able to 
indulge in the not unpleasing recollection that I write 
of places which no other western eyes have seen. The 
subject is of particular interest just now, because, by 


174 TUTANKHAMEN 


the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, the public 
has been set wondering whence came the gold and orna- 
mental stones which were used by the artists and crafts- 
men of those days, and some answer will here be found 
to their question. 

Those who have travelled in Egypt will not need to 
be told how the Nile, flowing down from the Sudan to 
the distant sea, pushes its silvery way through the wide 
desert; now passing between the granite hills, now 
through regions of sandstone, and now under the lime- 
stone cliffs. A strip of verdant cultivated land, seldom 
more than six or eight miles wide, and often only as 
many yards, borders the broad river; and beyond this, 
on either side, is the desert. In Upper Egypt one may 
seldom take an afternoon’s ride due east or due west 
without passing out either on to the sunbaked sand of 
a limitless wilderness or into the liquid shadows of the 
towering hills. For the present we are not concerned 
with the Western Desert, which actually forms part of 
the great Sahara, and our backs may therefore be 
turned upon it. 

Eastwards, behind the hills or over the sand, there 
is in most parts of the country a wide, undulating plain, 
broken here and there by the limestone outcrops. Here 
the sun beats down from a vast sky, and the traveller 
feels himself but a fly crawling upon a brazen table. In 
all directions the desert stretches, until, in a leaden haze, 
the hot sand meets the hot sky. The hillocks and points 
of rock rise like islands from the floods of the mirage 
in which they are reflected; and sometimes there are 
clumps of withered bushes to tell of the unreality of 
the waters. 

The scenery here is often of exquisite beauty; and 


THE EASTERN DESERT 175 


its very monotony lends to it an interest when for a 
while the grouping of the hills ceases to offer new pic- 
tures and new harmonies to the eye. Setting out on a 
journey towards the Red Sea, the traveller rides on 
camel-back over this rolling plain, with the sun bom- 
barding his helmet from above and the wind charging 
it from the flank; and, as noonday approaches search is 
often made in vain for a rock under which to find shade. 
Naturally, the glaring sand is far hotter than the shady 
earth under the palms in the cultivation; but the stag- 
nant, dusty, fly-filled air of the groves is not to be com- 
pared with the clear atmosphere up in the wilderness. 
There are no evil odours here, breeding sickness and 
beckoning death. The wind blows so purely that one 
might think it had not touched earth since the gods 
released it from the golden caverns. The wide ocean 
itself has not less to appeal to the sense of smell than 
has the fair desert. 

Descending from the camel for lunch, the explorer 
lies on his back upon the sand and stares up at the deep 
blue of the sky and the intense whiteness of a passing 
cloud. Raising himself, the Nile valley may still be 
seen, perhaps, with its palms floating above the vapor- 
ous mirage; and away in the distance the pale cliffs rise. 
Then across his range of sight a butterfly zigzags, blaz- 
ing in the sunlight; and behind it the blue becomes 
darker and the white more extreme. Around about, on 
the face of the desert, there is a jumbled collection of 
things beautiful; brown flints, white pebbles of lime- 
stone, yellow fragments of sandstone, orange-coloured 
ochre, transparent pieces of gypsum, carnelian and ala- 
baster chips, and glittering quartz. Across the clear 
patches of sand there are all manner of recent foot- 


176 TUTANKHAMEN 


prints, and the incidental study of these is one of the 
richest delights of a desert journey. Here may be seen 
the four-pronged footprints of a wagtail, and there the 
larger marks of a crow. An eagle’s and a vulture’s 
footmarks are often to be observed, and the identifica- 
tion of those of birds such as the desert partridge or of 
the cream-coloured courser is a happy exercise for the 
ingenuity. Here the light, wiggly line of a lizard’s 
rapid tour abroad attracts the attention, reminding one 
of some globe-trotter’s route over Europe; and there 
footprints of the Jerboa are seen leading in short jumps 
towards its hole. Jackals or foxes leave their dainty 
pad-marks in all directions, and sometimes there are 
seen the heavy prints of a hyzna, while it is not unusual 
to meet with those of a gazelle. 

In the afternoon he rides onwards, and perhaps a 
hazy view of the granite hills may now be obtained in 
the far distance ahead. The sun soon loses its strength 
and shines in slanting lines over the desert, so that he 
sees himself in shadow, stretched out to amazing 
lengths, as though the magnetic power of night in the 
east were already dragging in the reluctant darknesses 
to its dark self. Each human or camel footprint in the 
sand is at this hour a basin filled with blue shade, while 
every larger dent in the desert’s surface is brimful of 
that same blue; and the colour is so opaque that an 
Arab lying therein, clad in his blue shirt, is almost indis- 
tinguishable at a distance. Above, the white clouds go 
tearing by, too busy, too intent, it would seem, on some 
far-off goal to hover blushing around the sun. The 
light fades, and the camp is pitched on the open plain; 
and now the traveller is glad to wrap himself in a large 


THE EASTERN DESERT 177 


overcoat, and to swallow the hot tea which has been pre- 
pared over a fire of the dried scrub of the desert. 

The nights in the desert are as beautiful as the days, 
though in winter they are often bitterly cold. With the 
assistance of a warm bed and plenty of blankets, how- 
ever, one may sleep in the open in comfort; and only 
those who have known this vast bedroom will under- 
stand how beautiful night may be. Turning to the east, 
one may stare at Mars flashing red somewhere over 
Arabia, and westwards there is Jupiter blazing above 
the Sahara. One looks up and up at the expanse of 
star-strewn blue, and the mind journeys of itself into 
the place of dreams before sleep has come to conduct 
it thither. The dark desert drops beneath; the bed 
floats in mid-air, with planets above and below. Could, 
one but peer over the side, earth would be seen as small 
and vivid as the moon. But a trance holds the body 
inactive, and the eyes are fixed upon the space above. 
Then, quietly, a puff of wind brings the mind down 
again to realities as it passes from darkness to darkness. 
Consciousness returns quickly and gently, points out 
the aspect of the night, indicates the large celestial 
bodies, and as quickly and gently leaves one again to 
the tender whispers of sleep. 

When there is moonlight there is more to carry the 
eye into the region of dreams on earth than there is in 
the heavens; for the desert is spread out around in a 
silver, shimmering haze, and no limit can be placed to 
its horizons. 'The eye cannot tell where the sand meets 
the sky, nor can the mind know whether there is any 
meeting. In the dimness of coming sleep one wonders 
whether the hands of the sky are always just out of 
reach of those of the desert, whether there is always 


178 TUTANKHAMEN 


another mile to journey and always another hill to climb; 
and, wondering, one drifts into unconsciousness. At 
dawn, the light brings an awakening in time to see the 
sun pass up from behind the low hills. In contrast to 
the vague night the proceeding is rapid and business- 
like. The light precedes its monarch only by twenty 
minutes, or so; and ere the soft colours have been fully 
appreciated, the sun appears over the rocks and flings 
a sharp beam into the eyes of every living thing, so that 
in a moment the camp is stirred and quickened. 
During the second or third day’s ride the granite 
regions are generally entered, and the traveller is lost 
amidst the intricate valleys which pass between the 
peaks of the hills. Here plenty of shelter may be found 
from the sun’s rays in the shadow of the cliffs; and as 
the camel jogs along over the hard gravel tracks, or as 
the dismounted rider sits for refreshment with his back 
propped against a great boulder, the view which is to 
be enjoyed is often magnificent. On the one side the 
dark granite, porphyry, or breccia rocks rise up like the 
towered and buttressed walls of some fairy-tale city; 
while on the other side range rises behind range, and a 
thousand peaks harmonize their delicate purples and 
greys with the blue of the sky. When the sun sets these 
lofty peaks are flushed with pink, and, like mediators 
between earth and heaven, carry to the dark valleys 
the tale of a glory which cannot be seen. There is 
usually plenty of scrub to be found in the valleys with 
which to build the evening fires, and with good luck, the 
food-supplies may be replenished with the flesh of the 
gazelle. Every two or three days the camp may be 
pitched beside a well of pure water, where the camels 


THE EASTERN DESERT 179 


may drink, and from which the portable tanks may be 
filled. 

Near these wells there are sometimes a few Bedouin 
to be found tending their little herds of goats; quiet, 
harmless sons of the desert, who generally own allegi- 
ance to some Shekh living in the Nile valley. The guides 
and camel-men exchange greetings with them, and pass 
the latest news over the camp fires. Often, however, one 
may journey for many days without meeting either a 
human being or a four-footed animal, though on the 
well-marked tracks the prints of goats and goatherds, 
camels and camel-men are apparent. 

No matter in what direction one travels, hardly a 
day passes on which one does not meet with some trace 
of ancient activity. Here it will be a deserted gold- 
mine, there a quarry; here a ruined fortress or town, 
and there an inscription upon the rocks. Indications 
of the present day are often so lacking, and time seems 
to be so much at a standstill, that one slips back in imag- 
ination to the dim elder days. The years fall off like 
a garment doffed, and a vast sense of relief from their 
weight is experienced. A kind of exhilaration, more- 
over, goes with the thought of the life of the men of 
thousands of years ago who lived amongst these change- 
less hills and valleys. Their days were so full of ad- 
venture; they were beset with dangers. One has but to 
look at the fortified camps, the watch-towers on the 
heights, the beacons along the highroads, to realise how 
brave were the “olden times.” One of the peculiar 
charms of these hills of the Eastern Desert is their im- 
pregnation with the atmosphere of a shadowy adventur- 
ous past. The mind is conscious, if it may be so ex- 
pressed, of the ghosts of old sights, the echoes of old 


180 TUTANKHAMEN 


sounds. Dead ambitions, dead terrors, drift through 
these valleys on the wind, or lurk behind the tumbled 
rocks. Rough inscriptions on these rocks tell how this 
captain or that centurion here rested, and on the very 
spot the modern traveller rests to ease the self-same 
aches and to enjoy the self-same shade before moving 
on towards an identical goal in the east. 

On the third or fourth day after leaving the Nile, 
the caravan passes beneath the mountains, which here 
rise sometimes to as much as 6000 feet; and beyond 
these the road slopes through the valleys down to the 
barren Red Sea coast, which may be any distance from 
100 to 400 miles from the Nile. Kossair is the one town 
on the coast opposite Upper Egypt, as it was also in 
ancient times; and Berenice, opposite Lower Nubia, 
was the only other town north of Sudan territory. 
Kossair does a fast-diminishing trade with Arabia, and 
a handful of Egyptian coastguards is kept mildly busy 
in the prevention of smuggling. The few inhabitants 
of the Egyptian coast fish, sleep, say their prayers, or 
dream in the shade of their hovels until death at an 
extremely advanced age releases them from the bore- 
dom of existence. Those of them who are of Arab 
stock sometimes enliven their days by shooting one 
another in a more or less sporting manner, and by wan- 
dering to other and more remote settlements thereafter ; 
but those of Egyptian blood have not the energy even 
for this amount of exertion. There is a lethargy over 
the desert settlements which contrasts strangely with 
one’s own desire for activity under the influence of the 
sun and the wind, and of the records of ancient toil 
which are to be observed on all sides. It must be that 
we of the present day come as the sons of a race still 


THE EASTERN DESERT 181 


in its youth; and in this silent land we meet only with 
the worn-out remnant of a people who have been old 
these thousands of years. 

There was a threefold reason for the activities of the 
ancients in the Eastern Desert. Firstly, from Koptos, 
a city on the Nile not far from Thebes, to Kossair, there 
ran the great trade-route with Arabia, Persia, and 
India; and from Suez to Koptos there was a route by 
which the traders from Syria often travelled; from 
Edfu to Berenice there was a trade-route for the prod- 
uce of Southern Arabia and the ancient land of Pount; 
while other roads from point to point of the Nile were 
often used as short-cuts. Secondly, in this desert there 
were very numerous gold-mines, the working of which 
was one of the causes which made Egypt the richest 
country of the ancient world. And thirdly, the orna- 
mental stones which were to be quarried in the hills were 
in continuous requisition for the buildings and statuary 
of Egypt, Assyria, Persia and Rome. 

There is much to be said in regard to the gold-min- 
ing, but here space will not permit of more than the 
most cursory review of the information. Gold was used 
in Egypt at a date considerably prior to the beginning 
of written history, in Dynasty I, and there are many 
archaic objects richly decorated with that metal. The 
situation of many of the early cities of the Nile valley is 
due solely to this industry. When two cities of high an- 
tiquity are in close proximity to one another on oppo- 
site banks of the river, as is often the case in Upper 
Egypt, one generally finds that the city on the western 
bank is the older of the two. In the case of Diospolis 
Parva and Khenoboskion, which stand opposite to one 
another, the former, on the west bank, is the more 


182 TUTANKHAMEN 


ancient and is the capital of the province, and the latter, 
on the east bank, does not date later than Dynasty VI. 
Of Ombos and Koptos, the former, on the west bank, 
has prehistoric cemeteries around it; while the latter, on 
the east bank, dates from Dynasty I at the earliest. 
Hieraconpolis and Eileithyiaspolis stand opposite to 
each other, and the former, which is on the west bank, 
is certainly the more ancient. Of Elephantine and 
Syene, the latter, on the east bank, is by far the less 
ancient. And in the case of Pselchis and Baki (Kub- 
ban), the former, on the west bank, has near it an 
archaic fortress; while the latter, on the east bank, does 
not date earlier than Dynasty XII. 

The reason of this is to be found in the fact that 
most of the early cities were engaged in gold-mining, 
and despatched caravans into the Eastern Desert for 
that purpose. These cities were usually built on the 
western bank of the river, since the main routes of com- 
munication from end to end of Egypt passed along the 
Western Desert. Mining stations had, therefore, to be 
founded on the eastern bank opposite to the parent 
cities; and these stations soon became cities themselves 
as large as those on the western shore. ‘Thus the an- 
tiquity of the eastern city in each of these cases indi- 
cates at least that same antiquity for the mining of gold. 

Throughout what is known as the Old Kingdom, 
gold was used in ever-increasing quantities, but an idea 
of the wealth of the mines will best be obtained from 
the records of the Empire. About 250,000 grains of 
gold were drawn by the Vizir Rekhmara in taxes from 
Upper Egypt, and this was but a small item in com- 
parison with the taxes levied in kind. A king of a north 
Syrian state wrote to Amenhotep III, the Pharaoh of 


THE EASTERN DESERT 183 


Egypt, asking for gold, and towards the end of his 
letter he says: “Let my brother send gold in very large 
quantities, without measure, and let him send more gold 
to me than he did to my father; for in my brother’s land 
gold is as common as dust.”” To the god Amon alone, 
Rameses III presented some 26,000 grains of gold, and 
to the other gods he gave at the same time very large 
sums. In later times the High Priest of Amon was 
made also director of the gold mines, and it was the 
diverting of this vast wealth from the crown to the 
priesthood which was mainly responsible for the fall of 
the Ramesside line. 

A subject must here be introduced which will ever 
remain of interest to the speculative. I believe that the 
southern portion of this desert is to be identified with 
the Ophir of the Bible, and that the old gold-workings 
here are none other than “King Solomon’s Mines.” In 
the Book of Kings one reads, “And King Solomon 
made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside 
Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 
And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that 
had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. 
And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, 
four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to 
King Solomon.” Ophir cannot be identified with 
Arabia, since there is no gold there; and hence one may 
seek this land of ancient wealth at the southern end of 
the Eastern Egyptian Desert. If it is argued that the 
Hebrews would have found difficulties in carrying on 
mining operations unmolested in Egyptian territory, it 
may be contended, on the other hand, that King Solo- 
mon may have made some bargain with the Pharaoh; for 
example, that the former might mine in a certain tract 


184 TUTANKHAMEN 


of desert if the latter might cut timber in the Lebanon. 
The purchase of cedar-wood by the Egyptians is known 
to have taken place at about this period, payment in 
gold being made; and therefore it does not require an 
undue stretch of the imagination to suppose that the 
Hebrews themselves mined the gold. Again, at the 
time when King Solomon reigned in all his glory in 
Palestine, the short-lived Pharaohs of Egypt sat upon 
tottering thrones, and were wholly unable to protect the 
Eastern Desert from invasion. The Egyptians often 
state that they encountered hostile forces in this land, 
and these may not always have consisted of Bedouin 
marauders. 

No savant has accepted for a moment the various 
theories which place Ophir at the southern end of the 
African continent; and the most common view is that 
Solomon obtained his gold from the land of Pount, so 
often referred to in Kgyptian inscriptions. This coun- 
try is thought to have been situated in the neighbourhood 
of Suakin; but, as Professor Naville points out, it is a 
somewhat vague geographical term, and may include 
a large tract of country to the north and south of this 
point. One cannot imagine the Hebrews penetrating 
very far over the unknown seas to the perilous harbours 
of Middle Africa; one pictures them more easily hud- 
dled in the less dangerous ports of places such as Kos- 
sair or Berenice, or at farthest, in that of Suakin. It is 
thus very probable that some of the gold-workings in 
the desert here described are actually King Solomon’s 
Mines, and that the country through which the reader 
will be conducted is the wonderful Ophir itself. Cer- 
tainly there is no one who can state conclusively that it 
is not. 


THE EASTERN DESERT 185 


Work continued with unabated energy during the 
later periods of Egyptian history, and the Persian, 
Greek, and Roman treasuries were filled consecutively 
with the produce of these mines. Several classical 
writers make reference to these operations, and some- 
times one is told the actual name and situation of the 
workings. Diodorus gives a description of the mines 
in the Wady Alagi, and tells how the work was done. 
The miners each wore a lamp tied to his forehead. The 
stone was carried to the surface by children, and was 
pounded in stone mortars by iron pestles. It was then 
ground to a fine powder by old men and women. This 
powdered ore was washed on inclined tables, the residue 
being placed in earthen crucibles with lead, salt, and tin 
for fluxes, and was there baked for five days. 

Agatharchides describes how the prisoners and 
negroes hewed out the stone, and, with unutterable toil, 
crushed it in mills, and washed out the grains of gold. 
The Arabian historian, E] Macrizi, states that during 
the reign of Ahmed ibn Teilin there was great activity 
in the mining industry throughout the Eastern Desert, 
and Cufic inscriptions of this date, found in the old 
workings, confirm this statement. From then, until 
modern times, however, little work was done; but in 
recent years many of the ancient workings have been 
re-opened, and one must admit that if these are really 
to be regarded as King Solomon’s Mines, that poten- 
tate must have had a somewhat lower opinion of Ophir 
than tradition indicates. 

The other cause for the ancient activity in the East- 
ern Desert was, as has been said, the need of ornamental 
stone for the making of vases, statues, and architectural 
accessories. From the earliest times, bowls and vases 


186 TUTANKHAMEN 


of alabaster, breccia, diorite, and other fine stones were 
used by the Egyptians, and the quarries must have al- 
ready formed quite a flourishing industry. Soon the 
making of statuettes, and later, of statues, enlarged this 
industry, and with the growth of civilisation it steadily 
increased. The galleries of the Cairo Museum, and 
those of European museums, are massed with statues 
and other objects cut in stone, brought from the hills 
between the Nile and the Red Sea. 

The breccia quarries of Wady Hammamat were 
worked from archaic to Roman days; the Turquoise 
Mountains, not far from Kossair, supplied the markets 
of the ancient world; white granite was taken from the 
hills of Um Etgal; there were two or three alabaster 
quarries in constant use; and in the time of the Roman 
Empire the famous Imperial Porphyry was quarried in 
the mountains of Gebel Dukhan. One may still see 
blocks of breccia at Hammamat, of granite at Um 
EKtgal, or of porphyry at Dukhan, lying abandoned at 
the foot of the hills, although numbered and actually 
addressed to the Caesars. The towns in which the 
quarrymen lived still stand in defiance of the years, and 
the traveller who has the energy to penetrate into the 
distant valleys where they are situated may there walk 
through streets untrodden since the days of Nero and 
Trajan, and yet still littered with the chippings from 
the dressing of the blocks. 

In the old days the provisioning of the mining and 
quarrying settlements must have taxed the ingenuity 
even of the Egyptians; and the establishing of work- 
able lines of communication with the distant Nile must 
have required the most careful organisation. The cara- 
vans brmging food were of great size, for there were 


THE EASTERN DESERT 187 


often several thousands of hungry miners to be fed. In 
Dynasty VI, one reads of 200 donkeys and 50 oxen 
being used in the transport, and in Dynasty XI, 60,000 
loaves of bread formed the daily requirements in food 
of one expedition. In late Ramesside times the food 
of an expedition of some 9,000 men was carried on ten 
large carts, each drawn by six yoke of oxen, while 
porters “innumerable” are said to have been employed. 
The families of the workmen generally lived on the 
spot, and these also had to be fed—a fact which is 
indicated, too, by an inscription which states that in 
one expedition each miner required twenty small loaves 
of bread per diem. 

Whenever this organisation broke down, the conse- 
quences must have been awful. In this quarrying expe- 
dition in Ramesside times, consisting of 9,000 men, ten 
per cent of them died from one cause or another; and 
later writers speak of the “horrors” of the mines. In 
summer the heat is intense in the desert, and the wells 
could not always have supplied sufficient water. The 
rocks are then so hot that they cannot be touched by the 
bare hand, and one’s boots are little protection to the 
feet. Standing in the sunlight, the ring has to be re- 
moved from one’s finger, for the hot metal burns a 
blister upon the flesh. After a few hours of exercise 
there is a white lather upon the lips, and the eyes are 
blinded with the moisture which has collected around 
them; and thus, what the quarrymen and miners must 
have suffered as they worked upon the scorching stones, 
no tongue can tell. 

In ancient Egyptian times the camel was regarded 
as a curious beast from a far country, and was seldom, 
if ever, put to any use in Egypt. Only three or four 


188 TUTANKHAMEN 


representations of it are now known, and it never occurs 
amongst any of the animals depicted upon the walls of 
the tombs, although bears, elephants, giraffes, and other 
foreign and rare creatures, are there shown. It was an 
Asiatic animal, and was not introduced into Kgypt as 
an agent of transportation until the days of the ubiq- 
uitous Romans. Donkeys, oxen, and human beings 
were alone used in Pharaonic days for transporting the 
necessities of the labourers and the produce of their 
work; and probably the officials were carried to and 
fro in sedan-chairs. Even in Roman days there is noth- 
ing to show that the camel was very largely employed, 
and one may not amuse oneself too confidently with the 
picture of a centurion of the empire astride the hump of 
the rolling ship of the desert. 

Nowadays, of course, one generally travels by 
camel in the desert, except along certain routes where 
the use of an automobile is possible. For an expedition 
of fifteen days or so, about ten camels are required and 
one or two guides. Some of the animals carry the water 
in portable tanks; others are loaded with the tents and 
camp-beds; and others carry the boxes of tinned food 
and bottled drinks. ‘The whole caravan rattles and 
bumps as it passes through the echoing valleys, and 
one’s cook rises from amidst a clattering medley of 
saucepans and kettles, which are slung around his sad- 
dle. The camels are obtained from some Shékh, who 
pretends to hold himself more or less responsible for 
one’s safety. With a steady steed and a good saddle, 
there are few means of locomotion so enjoyable as 
camel-riding. Once the art is learnt, it is never for- 
gotten, and after the tortures of the first day or so of 
the first expedition, one need never again suffer from 


THE EASTERN DESERT 189 


stiffness, though many months may elapse between the 
journeys. ‘This preliminary suffering is due to one’s 
inability at the outset to adjust the muscles to the 
peculiar motion; but the knowledge comes uncon- 
sciously after a while and ever remains. 

One jogs along at the rate of about four and a 
half or five miles an hour, and some thirty miles a day 
are covered with ease. The baggage camels travel at 
about three miles an hour. They start first, are passed 
during the morning, catch one up at the long rest for 
luncheon, are again passed during the afternoon, and 
arrive about an hour after the evening halt has been 
called. If possible, all the camels drink every second 
day, but they are quite capable of going strongly for 
three or four days without water, and, when really 
necessary, can travel for a week or more through a land 
without wells. 

As has been said, experiments have been tried on 
certain routes with automobiles and motor bicycles, 
which were by no means unsuccessful. Many of the 
main roads in the Eastern Desert pass over hard gravel, 
and a motor car may be driven with safety over the un- 
prepared camel tracks. If wells were sunk every ten 
or fifteen miles, there would be no dangers to be feared 
from a breakdown; and under favourable circumstances 
the journey from the Nile to the Red Sea, at various 
points, might be comfortably accomplished in a day. 
In the future, one may picture the energetic tourist 
leaving his Luxor or Cairo hotel, whirling over the open 
plains where now one crawls, rushing through the val- 
leys in which the camel-rider lingers, penetrating to the 
remote ruins and deserted workings, and emerging 
breathless on to the golden coast of the sea, to wave his 


190 TUTANKHAMEN 


handkerchief to his friends upon the decks of the Indian 
liners. 

The time must surely come when the owners of 
automobiles in Egypt will sicken of the short roads 
around Cairo, and will venture beyond the garden wall 
towards the rising sun. Whether it will be that the re- 
working of the gold mines and the quarries of orna- 
mental stone will attract the attention of these persons 
to this wonderful wilderness, or that the enterprising 
automobilists will pave the way for the miners and 
the quarrymen, it is certain that some day the desert 
will blossom with the rose once more, and the rocks re- 
verberate with the sound of many voices. 

Had I now in my two open hands pearls, diamonds, 
and rubies, how gladly would I give them—or some of 
them—for the sight of the misty mountains of the East- 
ern Desert, and for the feel of the sharp air of the hills! 
The mind looks forward with enthusiasm to the next 
visit to these unknown regions, and I cannot but feel 
that those who have it in their power to travel there are 
missing much in remaining within the walls of the little 
garden of the Nile. I hear in imagination the camels 
grunting as their saddles are adjusted; I feel the tingle 
of the morning air; and I itch to be off again, “over the 
hills and far away,” into the solitary splendour of the 
desert. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 
[v= so-called Breccia Quarries of Wady Ham- 


mamat are known to all Egyptologists by name, 

owing to the important historical inscriptions 
which are cut on the rocks of the valley. In reality, the 
stone quarried there was mainly tuff, or consolidated 
volcanic ash, and the real name of the locality is Wady 
Fowakhieh, “the Valley of the Pots”; but such niceties 
do not trouble the average archeologist. Many of the 
inscriptions were copied by Lepsius, the German 
Egyptologist, and further notes were made by Goleni- 
scheff, a Russian savant; but except for these two per- 
sons, no Egyptologist beside myself has studied the 
quarries. ‘They have been seen, however, on a few occa- 
sions by Europeans; and, as the caravan road to Kos- 
sair passes along the valley in which they are situated, 
they are known to all the natives who have crossed the 
desert at this point. Some years ago, I found it possible 
to visit this historic site, and I was fortunate enough to 
obtain the companionship of three English friends who 
happened, very opportunely, to be in search of mild 
excitement at the time. 

We set out from Luxor one morning in November, 
our caravan consisting in all of twenty-three camels, 
nine of which were ridden by our four selves, my serv- 
ant, two guards, the Shékh of the camel-men, and the 


guide, while fourteen were loaded with the three tents, 
191 


192 TUTANKHAMEN 


the baggage, and the water-tanks, and were tended by 
a dozen camel-men, who made the journey mainly on 
foot. Our road led eastwards from Luxor, past the 
temple of the goddess Mut, at Karnak, reflected in its 
sacred lake, and so along the highroad towards the 
rising sun. The day was cool, and a strong invigorat- 
ing breeze raced past us, going in the same direction. 
Before us, as we crossed the fields, the sunlit desert lay 
stretched behind the soft green of the tamarisks which 
border its edge. Away to the right, the three peaks of 
the limestone hills, which form the characteristic back- 
ground of Thebes, rose in the sunlight; and to the left 
we could discern the distant ranges behind which we 
were to penetrate. 

On reaching the desert, we turned off northwards 
towards these hills, skirting the edge of the cultivated 
land until we should pick up the ancient road which 
leaves the Nile valley some twenty miles north of 
Luxor. After luncheon and a rest in the shade of the 
rustling tamarisks, the ride was continued, and we did 
not again dismount until, in the mid-afternoon, the 
Coptic monastery, which is situated behind the town of 
Qus, and which marks the beginning of the road to the 
Red Sea, was reached; and here the camp was pitched. 
The quiet five hours’ ride of about twenty miles had 
sufficed to produce healthy appetites in the party, and, 
when the sun went down and the air turned cold, we 
were glad to attack an early dinner in the warmth of the 
mess-tent—one of the camel-boxes serving as a table, 
and the four saddles taking the place of chairs. 

The next morning we set out soon after sunrise, and 
rode eastwards into the desert, which here stretched 
out before us in a blaze of sunlight. The road passed 





WADY HAMMAMAT 








AN ABANDONED SARCOPHAGUS AT WADY HAMMAMAT 





QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 193 


over the open gravel and sand in a series of parallel 
tracks beaten hard by the pads of generations of camels. 
Gebel el Gorn, “the Hill of the Horn,” was passed 
before noon; and, mounting a ridge, we saw the wide 
plain across which we were to travel, intersected by a 
dry river-bed, marked for its whole length by low 
bushes. Unable to find shade, and these bushes being 
still some distance ahead, we lunched in the open sun- 
light, at a spot where the wind, sweeping over the ridge, 
brought us all the coolness which we could desire. 

We were now on the great medieval highway from 
Qus to Kossair, by which the Arabian and Indian trade 
with Egypt was once conducted. ‘The quarries of 
Hammamat lie on the main road to the sea. Nowadays 
the road starts from Keneh; in ancient times it started 
from Koptos, now called Quft, about ten miles south of 
Keneh; and in medieval days it started from Qus, about 
ten miles south of Quft again. The roads from these 
different places join at the little oasis of Lagéta, which 
lies some four-and-twenty miles back from the Nile 
valley. 

Riding into Lagéta in mid-afternoon, the scene was 
one of great charm. ‘The flat desert stretched around 
us in a haze of heat. In the far distance ahead, the 
mountains of Hammamat could be seen, blue, misty, 
and indistinct. The little oasis, with its isolated groups 
of tamarisks, its four or five tall palms, its few acacias, 
and its one little crop of corn, formed a welcome patch 
of green amidst the barren wilderness; and the eyes, 
aching from the glare around, turned with gratitude 
towards the soft shadows of the trees. A large, and 
probably ancient, well of brackish water forms the 
nucleus around which the few poor huts cluster; and 


194 TUTANKHAMEN 


two or three shadiifs, or water-hoists, are to be seen here 
and there. A ruined, many-domed building, which may 
have been a caravanserai, or perhaps a Coptic mon- 
astery, stands picturesquely under a spreading acacia; 
and near it I found a fragment of a Greek inscription, 
in which, like a light emerging momentarily from the 
darkness of the past, the name of the Emperor Tiberius 
Claudius was to be seen. The few villagers idly watched 
us as we dismounted and walked through the settle- 
ment, too bathed in the languor of their monotonous 
life to bother to do more than greet with mild interest 
those of our camel-men whom they knew; and while 
we sat under the tamarisks to drink our tea, the only 
living thing which took any stock of us and our doings 
was a small green willow-wren, in search of a crumb of 
food. 

The camp was pitched to the east of the oasis, and 
at dawn we continued our way. The temperature was 
not more than 88° Fahrenheit when the sun rose, and 
we were constrained to break into a hard trot, in order 
to keep warm. ‘Two desert martins circled about us as 
we went, now passing under the camels’ necks, and now 
whirling overhead; while more than once we put up a 
few cream-coloured coursers, who went off with a whirr 
into the space around. After a couple of hours’ riding 
over the open, hard-surfaced desert, we topped a low 
ridge and came into view of a ruined Roman station, 
called in ancient times the Hydreuma, and now known 
as Kasr el Benat, “‘the Castle of the Maidens.” The 
building stands in a level plain around which the low 
hills rise, and to the east the distant Hammamat moun- 
tains form a dark background. From the outside one 
sees a well-made rectangular wall, and entering the 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 195 


doorway on the north side one passes into an enclosure 
surrounded by a series of small chambers, the roofs of 
which have now fallen in. In these little rooms the 
weary Roman officers and the caravan masters rested 
themselves as they passed to and fro between the quar- 
ries and the Nile; and in this courtyard, when haply the 
nights were warm, they sang their songs to the stars 
and dreamed their dreams of Rome. ‘The building is 
so little ruined that one may picture it as it then was 
without any difficulty; and such is the kindness of Time 
that one peoples the place with great men and good, 
intent on their work and happy in their exile, rather 
than with that riff-raff which so often found its way 
to these outlying posts. 

Across the plain, opposite the entrance to the 
Hydreuma, there is a large isolated rock with cliff-like 
sides upon which are all manner of inscriptions and 
rough drawings. Here there are two Sinaitic inscrip- 
tions of rare value, and several curious signs in an un- 
known script, while Ababdeh marks and Arabic letters 
are conspicuous. 

We mounted our camels again at about eleven 
o'clock, and rode towards the wall of the Medik 
es-Salém hills ahead, passing into their shadows soon 
after noonday. We halted for luncheon in the shade 
of a group of rocks, and our meal was enlivened by the 
presence of two butterflies, which seemed out of place 
in the barren desert, and yet in harmony with the 
breezy, light-hearted spirit of the place. arly in the 
afternoon we rode on, but an hour had not passed when 
some obvious inscriptions on the rocks to the left of the 
track, opposite a point where the road bends sharply 
to the right, attracted my attention. These proved to 


196 TUTANKHAMEN 


date from the Middle Empire, about B.c. 2000, and no 
doubt marked a camp of that period. The names of 
various officials were given, and a prayer or two to the 
gods were to be read. Rounding the corner, we had no 
sooner settled ourselves to the camels’ trot, than another 
group of inscriptions on the rocks to the right of the 
path necessitated a further halt. Here there were two 
very important graffiti of the time of Akhnaton, the 
father-in-law of ‘Tutankhamen; and considerable light 
is thrown by one of them upon the fascinating period 
of the religious revolution of that king. There are three 
cartouches, of which the first is that of Queen Tiy, the 
second reads “Amenhotep” (IV), and the third seems 
to have given the name Akhnaton; but both this car- 
touche and that of Tiy are erased. The three cartouches 
are placed together above the symbols of sovereignty 
and below the rays of the sun’s disk, thus showing that 
Akhnaton was but a boy of tender years, under his 
mother’s guidance, when he first came to the throne, 
and that the Aton worship had already begun. 

The shadows were lengthening when we once more 
mounted and trotted up the valley, which presently led 
into more open ground; but after half-an-hour’s ride, a 
second Roman station came into sight, and again the 
grumbling camels had to kneel. The building is much 
ruined, and is not of great interest to those who have 
already seen the Hydreuma and other stations. As we 
continued the journey the sun set behind us, and in the 
growing moonlight the valley looked ghostly and won- 
derfully beautiful. The shapes of the rocks became 
indistinct, and we were hardly aware when the well, 
known as Bir Hammamat, was at last reached. This 
well lies in a flat, gravelly amphitheatre amidst the 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 197 


rugged hills, which press in on all sides. It is in all 
about six hours’ ride—i.e., twenty-eight or thirty miles 
—from Lagéta; but our several halts had spread the 
journey over twice that length of time. The well is 
circular and fairly large, and stones dropped into its 
pitch-dark depths seemed a long time in striking the 
water. A subterranean stairway, restored in recent 
years by a mining company, runs down at one side to 
the water’s level; and at its doorway in the moonlight 
we sat and smoked until the baggage camels came up. 

The next morning we rode up a valley which was 
now tortuous and narrow. This is the Wady Hamma- 
mat of the archxologist, and the Wady Fowakhieh of 
the natives. Dark, threatening hills towered on either 
side, as though eager to prison for ever the deeds once 
enacted at their feet. Our voices echoed amongst the 
rocks, and the wind carried the sound down the valley 
and round the bend, adding to it its own quiet whis- 
pers. A ride of about half-an-hour’s length brought us 
to some ruined huts where the ancient quarrymen had 
lived in the days of the Pharaohs. From this point 
onwards for perhaps a mile the rocks on either side are 
dotted with inscriptions, from which a part of the 
history of the valley may be learnt. 

The place is full of whispers. As the breeze blows 
round the rocks and up the silent water-courses, it is as 
though the voices of men long since forgotten were 
drifting uncertainly by. One feels as though the rocks 
were peopled with insistent entities, all muttering the 
tales of long ago. Behind this great rock there is some- 
thing laughing quietly to itself; up this dry waterfall 
there is a sort of whimpering; and here in this silent 
recess one might swear that the word to be silent had 


198 TUTANKHAMEN 


been passed around. It is only the wind, and the effect 
of the contrast between the exposed and the still places 
sheltered by the rocks; but with such a history as is writ 
upon its walls, one might believe the valley to be 
crowded with the ghosts of those who have suffered or 
triumphed in it. 

Wady Fowakhieh extends from Bir Hammamat to 
another well, called Bir Fowakhieh, which lies in the 
open circus at the east end of the valley. Although the 
tuff quarried here is of a blue or olive-green colour, the 
surface of the rocks, except where they are broken, is 
a sort of chocolate-brown. One thus obtains an ex- 
traordinary combination of browns and blues, which 
with the flush of the sunset and the dim purple of the 
distant hill-tops forms a harmony as beautiful as any 
the world knows. The flat, gravel bed of the valley is 
from fifty to a hundred yards wide, and along this level 
surface run numerous camel-tracks, more or less par- 
allel with one another. Besides the inscriptions there 
are other traces of ancient work: an unfinished shrine, 
and a sarcophagus, abandoned owing to its having 
cracked, are to be seen where the workmen of some five- 
and-twenty centuries ago left them; and here and there 
a group of ruined huts is to be observed. 

Amidst these relics of the old world our tents were 
pitched, having been removed from Bir Hammaméat as 
soon as breakfast had been finished; and with camera, 
note-book, and sketching apparatus, the four of us dis- 
persed in different directions, my own objective, of 
course, being the inscriptions. The history of Wady 
Fowakhieh begins when the history of Egypt begins, 
and one must look back into the dim uncertainties of 
the archaic period for the first evidences of the working 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 199 


of the quarries in this valley. Many beautifully made 
bowls and other objects of this tuff are found in the 
graves of Dynasty I, fifty-five centuries ago; and my 
friends and I, scrambling over the rocks, were fortunate 
to find in a little wady leading northwards from the 
main valley a large rock-drawing and inscription of this 
remote date. A “vase-maker” here offers a prayer to 
the sacred barque of the hawk-god Horus, which is 
drawn so clearly that one may see the hawk standing 
upon its shrine in the boat, an upright spear set before 
the door; and one may observe the bull’s head, so often 
found in primitive countries, affixed to the prow; while 
the barque itself is shown to be standing upon a sledge 
in order that it might be dragged over the ground. 

In Dynasties II and IV the objects in the museums 
show that the quarries were extensively worked, and in 
Dynasty V one has the testimony of local inscriptions 
as well. An official under King Asesa (B.c. 2675) has 
left his name on the rocks on the south of the valley; 
and the name of another who lived in the reign of Unas 
(B.c. 2650) is to be seen there. Of the reign of Pepy I 
(B.c. 2600) of Dynasty VI, there is more definite in- 
formation. Scanning the rocks, one reads of chief archi- 
tects, master builders, assistant artisans, scribes, treas- 
urers, ship-captains, and their families stationed at the 
quarries to procure stone for the ornamentation of the 
pyramid buildings of the king, which are still to be seen 
at Sakkara, near Cairo; and these inscriptions mention 
a certain Thethi, who was the “master pyramid-builder 
of the king,” and therefore was probably in charge of 
the expedition. 

In the reign of Aty (B.c. 2500) a ship’s captain, 
named Apa, came to procure stone for his master’s pyra- 


200 TUTANKHAMEN 


mid; and with him were 200 soldiers and 200 workmen. 
King Imhotep (B.c. 2400) sent his son, Zaty, with 1,000 
labourers, 100 quarrymen, and 1,200 soldiers, to obtain 
stone; and he supplied 200 donkeys and 50 oxen daily 
for its transport. But the first really interesting in- 
scription on the rocks of the valley dates from Dynasty 
XI (z.c. 2050). Here an all too brief story is told by a 
great official named Henu, recording an expedition 
made by him to the distant land of Pount, in the eighth 
year of the reign of Menthuhotep III. The king had 
ordered Henu to despatch a ship to Pount in order to 
bring fresh myrrh from that land of spices, and he had 
therefore collected an army of 3,000 men. He set out 
from Koptos, travelled over the open desert to the little 
oasis of Lagéta, and so struck the road which we had 
followed. He seems to have had much consideration 
for his men, for he says, “I made the road a river, and 
the desert a stretch of field. I gave a leather bottle, a 
carrying pole, two jars of water, and twenty loaves of 
bread to each one of the men every day.” When one 
considers that this means 60,000 loaves of bread per 
day, one’s respect for the organising powers of the 
ancient Egyptians must be considerable. At Wady 
Fowakhieh he seems to have organised some quarry 
works for the king, and presently he pushed on towards 
the Red Sea, digging wells as he went. ‘The expedition, 
which will be recorded later, is then described; and 
Henu states that, on his return to Wady Fowakhieh, 
he organised the transport of some five blocks of stone 
which were to be used for making statues. 

In the second year of the reign of Menthuhotep IV, 
(B.c. 2000)—so runs another long rock inscription—the 
Vizir Amenemhet was sent to the quarries with an 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 201 


expedition of 10,000 men, consisting of miners, arti- 
ficers, quarrymen, artists, draughtsmen, stone-cutters, 
gold-workers, and officials. His orders were to procure 
“an august block of the pure costly stone which is in 
this mountain, for a sarcophagus, an eternal memorial, 
and for monuments in the temples.” The presence of 
gold-workers indicates that the gold mines near Bir 
Fowakhieh were also to be opened. Ancient workings 
are still to be seen near this well, and in modern times 
an attempt was made to re-open them, which, however, 
was not very successful. 

One must imagine this expedition as camping at 
that well—Bir Hammaméat—where we had camped on 
the previous night, and as passing up the valley each 
day to and from the quarries. This was a tedious walk, 
and a nearer water supply must have been much needed. 
One day there was a heavy fall of rain, which must have 
lasted several hours, for when it had ceased the sandy 
plain at the head of the valley was found to be a veri- 
table lake of water. Rain is not at all a common occur- 
rence in Upper Egypt. Even now, the peasants are 
peculiarly alarmed at a heavy downpour; and in those 
far-off days the quarrymen were ready enough to see 
in the phenomenon a direct act of the great god Min, 
the patron of the desert. “Rain was made,” says the 
inscription, “and the form of this god appeared in it; 
his glory was shown to men. The highland was made 
a lake, the water extending to the margin of the rocks.” 
The presence of the water seems to have dislodged an 
accumulation of sand which had formed over an ancient 
and disused well; and when the lake subsided, the 
astonished labourers discovered its mouth, ten cubits 
in length on its every side. “Soldiers of old and kings 


202 TUTANKHAMEN 


who had lived aforetime went out and returned by its 
side; yet no eye had seen it.” It was “undefiled, and 
had been kept pure and clean from the gazelle, and 
concealed from the Bedouin.” If this well is, as I sup- 
pose, the Bir Fowakhieh, it must have been a great boon 
to the workmen, for it is but a few minutes’ walk from 
the quarries, and must have saved them that weary 
tramp down to the Bir Hammamat at the end of their 
hard day’s work. 

When the great stone for the lid of the sarcophagus 
had been prised out of the hillside, and had been top- 
pled into the valley, another wonder occurred. Down 
the track there came running “a gazelle great with 
young, going towards the people before her, while her 
eyes looked backward, though she did not turn back.” 
The quarrymen must have ceased their work to watch 
her as she ran along the hard valley, looking back with 
startled eyes as the shouts of the men assailed her. At 
last, ‘‘she arrived at this block intended for the lid of 
the sarcophagus, it being still in its place; and upon it 
she dropped her young, while the whole army of the 
king watched her.” One can hear the quarrymen, as 
they clattered into the valley, shouting, “A miracle, a 
miracle!” and surrounded the incapacitated creature. 
The end of the tale is told briefly. “Then they cut her 
throat upon the block, and brought fire. The block 
descended to the Nile in safety.” 

Another inscription states that this sarcophagus lid 
was dragged down to the river by an army of 3,000 
sailors from the Delta, and that sacrifices of cattle, 
goats, and incense were constantly made in order to 
lighten the labour. It must have been an enormous 
block to drag along; for even after it was dressed into 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 203 


the required shape and size by the masons in Egypt, it 
was some 14 feet in length, 7 feet in width, and 314 feet 
in thickness. ‘Two other blocks brought down from 
these quarries at about the same date are said to have 
been 17 feet in length, while a third was about 20 feet 
long. 

In the reign of Amenemhet I, of Dynasty XII 
(B.c. 2000), an officer named Antef was sent to the quar- 
ries to procure a special kind of stone, so rare that 
“there was no prospector who knew the marvel of it, 
and none that sought it had found it.” “I spent eight 
days,” says Antef, “searching the hills for it, but I 
knew not the place wherein it might be. I prostrated 
myself before Min, before Mut, before the goddess 
great in magic, and before all the gods of the high- 
lands, burning incense to them upon the fire.” At last, 
after almost giving up the search in despair, he found 
the required block one morning just as the sun had 
topped the dark hills of the valley, and while his men 
were just scattering in all directions to renew the 
search. Although so many centuries have passed since 
Antef found his stone, one feels, when one reads this 
inscription upon the rocks, that it was but yesterday; 
and one may picture the sunlit scene when, as he says, 
“the company were in festivity and the entire army was 
praising, rejoicing, and doing obeisance.” 

Under other kings of this dynasty, one reads, as one 
walks up the valley, of works being carried on. A cer- 
tain man quarried and carried down to the river ten 
blocks which were later converted into seated statues, 
814 feet high. Another official speaks of his army of 
2,000 men which he had with him in this now desolate 
place; and a third has left an inscription, reading, “I 


204 TUTANKHAMEN 


came to these highlands with my army in safety, by the 
power of Min, the Lord of the Highlands.” 

So the work continued from generation to genera- 
tion, and the quarrymen, as they sat at noon to rest 
themselves in the shade, could read around them the 
names of dead kings and forgotten officials carved upon 
the rocks, and could place their own names in the illus- 
trious company. The troubled years of the Hyksos 
rule checked the quarrying somewhat; but in Dynasty 
XVIII the labours were renewed, though unfortu- 
nately no long inscriptions have been left to illuminate 
the darkness of the history of the valley. An inscrip- 
tion of the time of Akhnaton is to be seen high up on 
the rocks, but other figures have been cut over it by 
Sety I. 

Various kings of Dynasties XIX and XX are men- 
tioned on the rocks; but the only important inscription 
dates from the second year of the reign of Rameses IV 
(B.c. 1165). It seems that this king, with a degree of 
energy unusual in a Pharaoh of this debased period, 
made a personal visit to the quarries. “He led the way 
to the place he desired; he went around the august 
mountain; he cut an inscription upon this mountain, 
engraved with the great name of the king.” This in- 
scription is to be seen on the rocks of the valley, almost 
as fresh as when the scribes had written it. On his 
return to Egypt he organised an expedition for the 
purpose of quarrying the stone he had selected. A 
complete list of the personnel of the expedition is re- 
corded, and, as it gives an idea of the usual composition 
of a force of this kind, I may be permitted to give it in 
some detail. 

The head of the expedition was none other than the 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 205 


High Priest of Amon, and his immediate staff con- 
sisted of the king’s butlers, the deputy of the army and 
his secretary, the overseer of the treasury, two direc- 
tors of the quarry service, the court charioteer, and 
the clerk of the army lists. Twenty clerks of the army, 
or of the War Office, as we would say, and twenty 
inspectors of the court stables were attached to this 
group. Under a military commandant there were 20 
infantry officers and 5,000 men, 50 charioteers, 200 
sailors, and a mixed body of 50 priests, scribes, over- 
seers, and veterinary inspectors. Under a chief arti- 
ficer and three master quarrymen there were 130 stone- 
cutters and quarrymen; while the main work was done 
by 2,000 crown slaves and 800 foreign captives. Two 
draughtsmen and four sculptors were employed for 
engraving the inscriptions, ete. A civil magistrate with 
50 police kept order amongst this large force, which 
altogether totalled 8,362 men, not including, as the 
inscription grimly states, the 900 souls who perished 
from fatigue, hunger, disease, or exposure. 

The supplies for this large expedition were trans- 
ported in ten carts, each drawn by six yoke of oxen; 
and there were many porters laden with bread, meat, 
and many kinds of cakes. The inscription then tells us 
of the sacrifices which were continuously made to the 
gods of the desert. “There were brought from Thebes 
the oblations for the satisfaction of the gods of heaven 
and earth. Bulls were slaughtered, calves were smit- 
ten, incense streamed to heaven, shedeh and wine were 
like a flood, beer flowed in this place. The voice of the 
ritual-priest presented these pure offerings to all the 
gods of the mountains, so that their hearts were glad.” 

In this remote desert, how easy it is to dream one- 


206 TUTANKHAMEN 


self back in the olden days! The valley, pressed close 
on either side by the rocks around which the whispers 
for ever wander, echoes once again with the ring of the 
chisels; and in the wind which almost ceaselessly rushes 
over the ancient tracks, one can see the fluttering gar- 
ments of the quarrymen as they pass to and from their 
work. As we sat at the door of our tents, in the cool 
of the afternoon, the present day seemed now as remote 
as the past had seemed before; and, when the great 
moment of sunset was approached, we almost felt it 
fitting to burn a pan of incense to the old gods of 
heaven and earth, as the officers of Rameses IV had 
done. 

The names of later kings, Shabaka, Taharka, Psam- 
etik, Nekau, Ahmose II, and others, look down from 
the rocks; and sometimes the date is precisely given, 
and the names of the officials are mentioned. During 
the Persian period the green tuff was in considerable 
demand for the making of those life-like portrait statu- 
ettes, so many of which are to be seen in the various 
museums; and the coarser tuff, which is practically 
breccia, was much used for shrines and sarcophagi. It 
is curious to see in this distant valley the names of the 
Persian kings, Cambyses, Darius I, Xerxes I, and 
Artaxerxes I, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs in the 
rock inscriptions, together with the year of their reigns 
in which the quarrying was undertaken. Nectanebo I 
and II (z.c. 370 and B.c. 350) have left their names in 
the valley; and dating from this and the subsequent 
periods there are various Egyptian and Greek in- 
scriptions. 

In the reign of Ptolemy III (8.c. 240) a small tem- 
ple was built near the Bir Fowakhieh at the east end of 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 207 


the valley of the quarries. Wandering over this amphi- 
theatre amidst the hills, we came upon the remains of 
the little building, which had been constructed of rough 
stones augmented by well-made basalt columns. It was 
dedicated to the god Min, the patron of the Eastern 
Desert; but as it was only about 12 feet by 22 feet in 
area, the priests of the god could not have commanded 
the devotion of more than a few of the quarrymen. 
Near the temple there are three or four groups of 
ruined huts, nestling on the hillsides amongst the rocks; 
and here the quarrymen of the Ptolemaic and Greco- 
Roman ages dwelt, as the broken pottery indicates. 
There are many traces of ancient gold-workings near 
by, and a ruined house of modern construction stands 
as a sad memorial of the unsuccessful attempt to re- 
open them. Im the inscriptions of Dynasties X VIIT- 
XX one reads of “the gold of Koptos,” which must be 
the gold brought into Koptos from this neighbourhood ; 
and at this later period the mines appear to have been 
worked. A very fine pink granite began to be quar- 
ried just to the east of this well in Roman days, and one 
may still see many blocks cut from the hillside which 
have lain there these two thousand years awaiting 
transport. 

In Wady Fowakhieh itself there are many blocks 
of tuff, addressed to the Cesars, but never despatched 
to them; nor is there anything in this time-forsaken 
valley which so brings the past before one as do these 
blocks awaiting removal to vanished cities. There are 
many Greek inscriptions to be seen, the majority being 
grouped together in a recess amidst the rocks on the 
south side of the valley. Here we read of persons who 
worked for Tiberius, Nero, Domitian, and other em- 


208 TUTANKHAMEN 


perors; and there are their drawings of men, animals, 
and boats, as fresh as when an hour at noon was whiled 
away in their making. From these, the last days of the 
quarrying, dates a causeway which passes up the hill- 
side on the south of the valley, and which was intended 
to ease the descent of blocks quarried higher up. The 
Romans have also left watch-towers on the hill-tops, 
which indicate that peace did not always reign in the 
desert. 

The night, which closed in on us all too soon, brought 
with it the silence of the very grave. The wind fell, and 
the whisperings almost ceased. ‘The young moon, which 
lit the valley, seemed to turn all things to stone under 
its gaze; and not a sound fell from the camel-men or 
the camels. The evening meal having been eaten and 
the pipes smoked, we quietly slipped into our beds; and 
when the moon had set behind the hills and absolute 
darkness had fallen upon the valley, we might have 
believed ourselves as dead and as deep in the Under- 
world as the kings whose names were inscribed upon 
the black rocks around. 

On the following morning we continued our jour- 
ney eastwards, towards the Red Sea, along the old trade- 
route. This expedition forms a subject which will be 
treated by itself in the next chapter, and therefore I 
may here pass over the week occupied by the journey, 
and may resume the thread of the present narrative at 
the date when we set out from Wady Fowakhieh on our 
homeward way. The day was already hot as we trotted 
down the valley and past the Bir Hammaméat, where, 
by the way, we put up another family of cream-coloured 
coursers. A couple of hours’ trotting brought us to a 
cluster of sandstone rocks on the north of the now open 


QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMAT 209 


and wide road, these having been passed in the dusk 
on the outward journey. Here I found one or two 
inscriptions in unknown letters, a few Egyptian graffiti, 
and a little Greco-Roman shrine, dedicated to the great 
god Min. On these rocks we ate our luncheon, and 
rested in the shade; and in the early afternoon we 
mounted once more, passing the second Roman station 
half-an-hour later. A ride of two and a half hours 
brought us to the Hydreuma about sunset, and here 
we halted to smoke a pipe and stretch our legs. Then 
in the moonlight we rode on once more over the open 
desert, which stretched in hazy uncertainty as far as the 
eye could see. The oasis of Lagéta was reached at 
about seven o’clock, and, the night having turned cold, 
we were glad to find the camp fires already burning 
and the kettle merrily boiling. 

We were on the road again soon after sunrise, and 
riding towards Koptos, about ten or twelve miles from 
Lagéta, we passed another Roman enclosure, now 
almost entirely destroyed. Our route now lay to the 
north of the hills of El Gorn, the south side of which 
we had seen on our outward journey; and after three 
and a half hours’ riding we came into sight of the dis- 
tant Nile valley. The thin line of green trees seemed 
in the mirage to be swimming in water, as though the 
period of the inundation were upon us again. At the 
point where this view is first obtained there are some 
low hills, on the south side of the tracks, and in one of 
these there is a small red-ochre quarry. The sandstone 
is veined with ochre, and the quarry had been opened 
for the purpose of obtaining this material for the mak- 
ing of red paint; but whether the few red markings on 
the rocks are ancient or medieval, I cannot say. Here 


210 TUTANKHAMEN 


we ate an early luncheon, and about noon we rode on 
over the sun-bathed plain down to the cultivation. 
Leaving the desert, our road passed between the fields 
towards the Nile; and by two o’clock we reached the 
picturesque village of Quft, which marks the site of the 
ancient Koptos. We spent the afternoon in wandering 
over the ruins of the once famous caravanserai, and in 
the evening we took the train back to Luxor. 

Such are the quarries of Hammaméat, and such is the 
road to them. It is a simple journey, and one able to 
be undertaken by any active person who will take the 
trouble to order a few camels from Keneh. There will 
come a time when tourists will travel to the quarries by 
automobile, for even the present road is hard-surfaced 
enough to permit of that form of locomotion, and with 
a little doctoring it will not be far from perfection. A 
place such as this wonderful valley, with its whispers 
and its echoes, seems to beckon to the curious to come, 
if only to be lost for awhile in the soothing solitudes 
and moved by the majesty of the hills. To those inter- 
ested in the olden days the rocks hold out an invitation 
which I am always surprised to find so seldom responded 
to; but let any man feel for an hour the fine freedom of 
the desert, and see the fantasy of the hills, and that 
invitation will not again be lightly set aside. On camel 
or automobile he will make his way over the ancient 
tracks to the dark valley of the quarries; and there he 
will remain entranced, just as we, until the business of 
life shall call him back to the habitations of present-day 
men. 


CHAPTER X 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 


a few miles below Luxor, the river makes its 

nearest approach to the Red Sea, not more than 
110 miles of desert separating the two waters at this 
point. From Quft, the ancient Koptos, to Kossair, the 
little seaport town, there runs the great highroad of 
ancient days, along which the Egyptians travelled who 
were engaged in the Eastern trade. It happened by 
chance that this route led through the Wady Fowak- 
hieh, in which the famous quarries were situated; and 
in the last chapter I have recorded an expedition made 
to that place. From the quarries I set out with my 
three friends to the sea; and as the route from the Nile 
to Wady Fowakhieh has already been described, it now 
remains to record its continuation eastwards and our 
journeying upon it. 

The history of this highroad is of considerable inter- 
est, for it may be said to be the most ancient of the 
routes of which the past has left us any record; and its 
hard surface has been beaten down by the fall of feet 
almost continuously from the dawn of human things to 
the present day. It has been thought by some that a 
large element of the prehistoric inhabitants of the Nile 
valley came into Egypt by this road. Excavations at 
Quft (Koptos) have shown the city to date from Dy- 


nasty I, and the great archaic statues of Min, the god 
211 


|: the reach of the Nile, between Quft and Keneh, 


212 TUTANKHAMEN 


of the desert, one of which is to be seen at the Ash- 
molean Museum, Oxford, were here found. The ancient 
Egyptians always believed that the home of their an- 
cestors was in the land of Pount, the region around 
Suakin; and since so many archaic remains have been 
found at Koptos, the terminus of a route which in his- 
torical times was sometimes used by persons travelling 
to Pount, it seems not unlikely that there was a certain 
infiltration of Pountites into Egypt by way of Kossair 
and Quft. These people travelling in ships along the 
coast, Arabians sailing from the eastern shores of the 
Red Sea, or Bedouin journeying by land from Sinai 
and Suez, may have passed over this road, to trade with 
the inhabitants of Upper Egypt; but, on the other 
hand, there is no evidence to show that any extensive 
immigration or invasion took place. The coast of the 
Red Sea is utterly barren, and the wells are few in 
number; and one could more readily imagine the pre- 
historic inhabitants of Egypt pushing eastwards on 
hunting expeditions until they encountered the sea, and 
thus opening up the route, than one could picture these 
eastern peoples penetrating from an untenable base to 
a hostile country at the dawn of known days. 

Upon the archaic statues of the god Min, at Kop- 
tos, there are many rude drawings scratched on the 
stone surface. ‘These represent pteroceras shells, the 
saws of sawfish, a stag’s head, the forepart of an ele- 
phant, a hyena, a young bull, an ostrich, and a flying 
bird. It is evident that these drawings would not have 
been scratched upon the statue of the tribal god without 
some sort of meaning being attached to them, and it 
seems probable that one may see in them the articles of 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 213 


commerce which the people of Koptos imported from 
the Red Sea—shells, horn, ivory, feathers and skins. 

The earliest written record of a journey to Kossair 
dates from Dynasty XI (B.c. 2020) when an official, 
named Henu, travelled from Koptos to Kossair, and 
thence to Pount. “The king sent me,” says Henu, “‘to 
despatch a ship to Pount to bring for him the fresh 
myrrh from the chieftains of the desert, which had been 
offered to him by reason of the fear of him in those 
countries. Then I went forth from Koptos upon the 
road, as his majesty had commanded me. ‘Troops 
cleared the way before me, overthrowing those hostile 
to the king; and the hunters and the children of the 
desert were posted as the protection of my limbs... . 
Then I reached the Red Sea, and I built this ship, and 
I despatched it with everything, after I had made for 
it a great oblation of cattle, bulls, and ibexes.” 

Henu, no doubt, carried the material for building 
the vessel across the desert, and settled down on the 
coast to build it, his supplies being sent to him from 
Koptos as often as necessary. He tells us in another 
part of the inscription that he dug several wells in the 
desert; and we can imagine his little company living 
quite happily beside one of these wells near the sea- 
shore while the vessel was hammered together on the 
beach below. After the lapse of four thousands of 
years we may still picture these scenes; the launching 
of the ship into the blue waters, when the savour of burnt 
offerings streamed up to heaven, and the shouts of the 
workmen rang across the sandy beach; the tedious jour- 
ney along the barren coast, always the yellow hills upon 
the right and always the boundless sea upon the left; 
the landing on the strange shores of Pount, where the 


214 TUTANKHAMEN 


precious myrrh trees abundantly grow and there was 
talk of gold as of a thing of little worth; where sleek, 
bearded men and amazingly fat women sat at the doors 
of bee-hive huts, raised from the ground upon piles *; 
and where, walking abroad, giraffes and other surpris- 
ing creatures might be encountered, whose existence 
would not be credited by friends at home. An Anglo- 
Saxon feels that it would almost have been worth the 
four thousand years of subsequent oblivion to have 
seen what these adventurers saw! 

During the next twenty centuries the road seems to 
have been in continual use, but there are no interesting 
inscriptions recording expeditions made along it, though 
one may be sure that many of the trading expeditions 
passed over this route to the land of Pount. The town 
of Kossair seems to have been called Thaau at this 
period, but in Greco-Roman days this name has devel- 
oped into Tuau or Duau, a word written in hieroglyphs 
simply with three stars. The trade with Arabia and 
India, which flourished during the rule of the Ptolemies, 
brought the road into very general use, and Kossair 
became as important a trading town as any in Egypt. 
The harbour, however, was so poor that a new port and 
town was constructed some five miles to the north, where 
a natural bay was easily able to be improved into a very 
fair harbour. This new town was called Philoteras,. in 
honour of the sister of Ptolemy Philadelphos (8.c. 285), 
while the older port was now known as Aennum by for- 
eigners, though to the Egyptians both towns were called 
Duau. 

I was fortunate enough to find some blocks of a 
Ptolemaic temple at the older Kossair, and on one of. 

* As in the sculptured scenes at Dér el-Bahri. 


THK RED SEA HIGHROAD 215 


them was the name Duau, followed by the hieroglyph 
representing a town, written twice, to indicate the ex- 
istence of the two ports. 

Not infrequently one finds at Koptos and elsewhere 
short inscriptions of this period relating to journeys: 
made along this route to Kossair, and thence over the 
high seas. One example may here be quoted: “To the 
most high goddess Isis, for a fair voyage for the ship 
Serapis, Hermaeus dedicates this.” 

I must be permitted to give in full a very interesting 
tariff of taxes imposed on persons using the road during 
the Roman occupation, which was found in a ruined 
guardhouse, just behind Koptos, at the beginning of 
the highway. It reads as follows: 


By ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR OF Ecypt.—The dues 
which the lessees of the transport service in Koptos, 
subject to the Arabian command, are authorised to levy 
by the customary scale, are inscribed on this tablet at 
the instance of L. Antistius Asiaticus, Prefect of the 
Red Sea Slope. 


Fora Red Seahelmsman .. ay drachmas 8 
”? a Red Sea bowsman a hie td 10 
” an able seaman ve Ki, 2 5 
” ashipyard hand .. us be i 5 
” askilled artisan .. * 8 


a woman for prostitu- 


tion ay Age Me 108 
” a woman immigrant iy. ie “ 20 
” a wife of a soldier hy 20 
” acamelticket .. a oy obols 1 


ad 
~~) 


sealing of said ticket ., os 2 


216 TUTANKHAMEN 


For each ticket for husband, 
if mounted when a 


caravan is leaving .. “yi drachmas_ 1 
” all his women at the rate 

of ee a re we 4 A 
” adonkey . : oe we obols 2 
” a waggon ati tilt oy ae drachmas 4 
we SHID Se MASE ses ~ es ‘ 20 
” a ship’s yard hte rs hoe 4 


The ninth year of the Emperor Cesar Domitian Au- 
gustus Germanicus, on the 15th of the month of May. 


In the above tariff it will be seen that the persons 
or articles on which taxes were levied were such as one 
might expect to have passed between the Nile and the 
sea; and only those items concerning women seem to 
call for explanation. The very large tax imposed upon 
prostitutes must indicate that Indian or Arabian females 
coming into Egypt along this route, and lable to bring 
with them the evils of the East, could only be admitted 
when they were of the richest and, consequently, best 
and highest class. Such women were always taxed in 
the Roman Empire, and in this regard a rather humor- 
ous story is told in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of 
Tyana. That holy man was accosted by a tax-collector, 
when about to cross the Euphrates, and was asked his 
wares. He replied with the somewhat banal remark 
that he had with him S6phrosiné kai Dikaiostiné kai 
Andreia—‘Temperance, Righteousness, and Courage.” 
The official at once assessed these as dowlas, “female 
slaves,” and would have taxed them as prostitutes, had 
not the prophet hastily corrected him by saying that 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 217 


they were not dowlas, but despoinas, “ladies of the 
house”! 

The “wives of soldiers,’ mentioned in the tariff, 
shows that Mommsen was right in stating that the rule 
of the emperors was laxer in Egypt than elsewhere, for 
before the time of Severus it was not possible for legion- 
aries to contract legal marriages while on active service; 
but in Egypt the marriages were so far recognised that 
the wives could be taxed as such, and the children could 
be enrolled as legionaries. 

During medieval times, this Red Sea highroad was 
much used by traders, but its river terminus was now 
removed from Koptos to Qus, a town a few miles far- 
ther up-stream, which soon became second only to 
Cairo in size and wealth. A pottery figure of Buddha, 
some medizval Chinese vases, and a few Arabian an- 
tiquities, found in Upper Egypt, are records of the use 
of this route at that time. In later days the terminus 
again shifted to Keneh, a few miles to the north of 
Koptos, and to that town there still come Arabian 
traders from across the Red Sea, and pilgrims some- 
times use it as the base of the journey to Mecca. 

From Wady Fowakhieh our party set out along this 
highroad at about 7 a.m. on a bracing morning in 
November. From Bir Fowakhieh the road branched 
off to the right, along a fine valley, shut in by hills fan- 
tastic in shape and colour. Clustering on either side of 
the path for some distance, there were groups of ancient 
huts, and in the hillsides there were traces of gold mines 
long since abandoned. The road beneath us was hard, 
flat, and blue-grey in colour, as though some mighty 
torrent had brought down masses of gravel and had 
laid it level over the bottom of the valley. Gradually 


218 TUTANKHAMEN 


it sloped upwards, and as the hills drew in on either side 
we felt that the highest point of the whole road would 
soon be reached. We were already half way between 
the Nile and the sea, and so far there had been a con- 
tinuous slope upwards, so gradual as to be almost im- 
perceptible. The valley now twisted and turned nar- 
rowly between the dark hills, and the gravel bed became 
humped and banked up, where the early waters had 
raced down some narrow gorge and had churned them- 
selves through a natural basin into the wide bed beyond. 
The cold wind beat in our faces as we trotted up the 
narrowing valley, and the sun had not yet gained much 
power when, after a ride of two hours, we reached the 
rugged pass which forms the apex of the route. 

The scenery here is superb. The pathway, such as 
it is, threads its way through a cluster of great grey! 
boulders tumbled into the few yards’ width between the 
rocks of the hillside, so that on foot one may Jump from 
stone to stone up the whole length of the pass, and on 
camel-back one has to twist and turn, rise and descend, 
until the saddle-straps come near to bursting. Amidst 
the rocks there is a well, known as Bir es Sid, which 
may have been opened in ancient times, perhaps by the 
redoubtable Henu. A few natives were encamped near 
by, and not far away their goats were to be seen, in the 
charge of a small girl, whose dark dress, fluttering in 
the wind, caught our eye amidst the pale grey of rocks 
and the cold blue of the shadows. 

Riding on for another two hours, we reached an open 
ridge from which an extraordinary prospect of rolling 
hills and innumerable humps was obtained. On the left 
of the pathway there was a hill at the top of which stood 
a ruined Roman watch-tower, one of a chain of such 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 219 


posts which crowned the higher peaks all along the 
route. Up this hill we scrambled on foot, and climbed 
the tower at the summit, burning a pipeful of tobacco 
to the gods of contentment thereon. The array of hills 
around us, as closely packed and yet as individual as 
the heads of a vast crowd of people, were of a wonderful 
hue in the morning light. Those to the north were a 
dead grey, those to the east were pink and mauve, and 
those to the south every shade of rich brown, while the 
shadows throughout were of the deepest blue. The 
wind tore past us as we sat contemplating the fair world 
at our feet, and two black revens sailed by on it, to take 
stock of us. Far below, the path wound its way through 
the humps; and in the distance the peaks and spires of 
the darker rocks into which it penetrated bounded the 
scene, and hid the sea from view. 

Mounting the camels once more, we defiled down 
the steep path, and for a time were lost amidst the hills. 
We lunched an hour later in more open country; and 
riding on afterwards for somewhat over two hours we 
reached the Roman station of Abu Zerah, which lies in 
the plain at the foot of a range of fine purple hills. As 
is usual in these buildings, the station consists of a rec- 
tangular enclosure, the wall being still some twelve feet 
high in parts. The door-posts of the main entrance are 
made of sandstone, and upon one of them is an almost 
obliterated Latin inscription. There are several rooms 
inside the enclosure, built against the wall, a space being 
left open in the middle. Just to the north there are 
a few graves, around which some broken pottery of 
Roman date lies scattered. 

A ride of less than an hour brought us to another 
Roman station, known as Hosh el Homra, “the Red 


220 TUTANKHAMEN 


Enclosure,” where we only halted for a moment or so, 
in order to ascertain that there was no unique feature 
in this building. In the afternoon light the scene was 
of great beauty. Range upon range of hills surrounded 
us, which assumed a thousand varying colours: pink, 
rose, purple, blue, and olive-green in the foreground. 
Spires of rock shot up to a soft sky in which floated the 
already visible moon, and overhead seven black ravens 
soared past upon the wind. Soon the sun went down, 
and resting in the lee of a group of dark rocks, we 
watched the pageant of colours go by and waited for 
the baggage camels to come up. 

The journey was resumed at an early hour next 
morning, and after a trot of about three-quarters of an 
hour, we reached the well and Roman station of Hagi 
Suliman. The ancient well, lying within the enclosing 
wall, has been restored in modern times, and upon a 
tablet let into the wall is rudely written: “Briggs, Han- 
cock, and Wood, 1882.” At this point the road is 
joined by another from the north-west, along which we 
made our return journey to Bir Fowakhieh, by way of 
Wady el Esh and Wady Adolla. From Bir Hagi 
Suliman to Bir Fowakhieh by this route is a trot of 
about six hours. 

The morning was bitterly cold and the wind swing- 
ing up the valley chilled us to the bone. The tracks 
led now this way and now that, around sharp corners, 
where the wind buffeted us suddenly, across patches 
of sunlight, where there was some hope of warmth, 
and then again up shaded valleys, where we saw an 
occasional wagtail or sand-martin puffing its feathers 
out against the cold airs. A trot of two and a half 
hours brought us to yet another Roman ruin, called 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 221 


EK] Litémah. Here there is, as usual, an enclosing wall 
surrounding an area in which several chambers are 
built and a well is dug. The door-posts of the entrance 
are made of sandstone, and some Cufic inscriptions are 
written upon one of these by travellers in the middle 
ages. As we entered the building, a number of sand- 
grouse rose from the midst of the ruins and went off 
to the north, their swift flight being visible for some 
time against a background of pale limestone hills, 
which told of our approach to the sea. Near here we 
passed a party of Arabian traders, some riding camels 
and others walking. A more evil-looking set of men 
I have seldom seen, and as they eyed us and whispered 
together, we felt that some mischief was afoot. It was 
therefore not surprising to learn when we returned to 
the Nile that a caravan had been attacked, with con- 
siderable bloodshed, at about that place and time, by 
Arabians answering to this description. 

An hour and a quarter later we emerged from the 
hills into an open plain in which a well, known as Bir el 
Ingliz, is situated. This well was dug by English 
troops at the beginning of the nineteenth century, dur- 
ing operations against Napoleon’s generals, of which 
further mention will be made. A few Ababdeh natives 
were here encamped, and hastened to draw water for 
our thirsty camels, begging a cigarette as a reward for 
the labour. In the shade of some rocks to the south- 
east we partook of our luncheon. 

The seat which I selected for myself proved to be 
that chosen by a prehistoric hunter some sixty cen- 
turies ago, for upon the face of the rock beside it there 
is a rude archaic drawing of a man holding a bow. 
Two French soldiers, of 1799, have here written their 


222 TUTANKHAMEN 


names—Forcard and Materon—which remain as me- 
morials of a page of history little remembered at the 
present time. 

In the afternoon we trotted over open desert and 
through shady valleys for about the space of an hour, 
at the end of which we reached the spring known as Bir 
Ambagi, situated in a fine wady, with grey-green cliffs 
on either hand and pink limestone hills ahead. In this 
fair setting there grew the greenest reeds and rushes 
amidst pools of the bluest water. Some Ababdeh goats 
grazed across the valley, bleating merrily as they went; 
and not a few birds added their notes to the happy 
fluting of the wind, which blowing from over-seas, 
seemed to set the rushes nodding to “songs of Araby 
and tales of old Cashmere.” Leaving this valley, we 
travelled down a rather dull wash-out sloping towards 
the sea, which at length opened sufficiently to show us 
a glimpse of the blue water. There is always some- 
thing which penetrates to the heart in the first view 
of the sea after an interval of months; and now, the 
eyes having accustomed themselves to the barren 
desert, the old wonder came upon us with new weapons, 
and attacked the senses with fresh vigour. We might 
have shouted for the sheer pleasure of it; and when, 
presently, a group of green palms passed into view, 
lit by the afternoon sun, and stood between the sand 
and the sea, we felt to the full the power of the assault. 

As the hills fell back on either side, we passed on to 
the wide, flat beach, and headed our camels towards 
the blue sea, dismounting at last a hundred yards from 
the rippling water. Except for the slow pulse of the 
waves, there was an unbroken silence over the world. 
Southwards the sand stretched to the foot of the hills, 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 223 


beyond which rose the dreamy peaks of the Turquoise 
Mountains; northwards the little town of Kossair lay 
basking in the sunlight; to the west the dark hills 
through which we had passed stood waiting breath- 
lessly to surround the setting sun; and to the east the 
wonderful sea seemed quietly to be sleeping and sigh- 
ing in its sleep. Had we stumbled against the slum- 
bering forms of the lotus-eaters themselves, we would 
hardly have felt surprise; for here we might have 
supposed that we were in a land “where it was always 
afternoon,” a land “where all things always seemed 
the same.” In a little bay, or high and dry upon the 
sand, lay vessels of a bygone age—two-masted hulks 
with ponderous sterns. Beside them we could just 
discern two men, fast asleep; and had we awakened 
them, there seemed hardly a doubt they would have 
been found to be as mild-eyed and melancholy as the 
men of 'Tennyson’s poem. 

Presently, as we sat listening to the sea, the sun 
set, and from the minaret of a mosque in the town a 
boy called to the sleepy Faithful their daily summons 
to prayer. His voice drifting to us on the quiet air was 
the first human sound which had risen from the little 
town; but hardly had it died away before the distant 
sound of voices and the grunts of camels warned us 
of the arrival of our baggage. A few figures saun- 
tered idly out of the town to watch us, as the tents 
were pitched on the beach; and thus the dream was 
broken, and we awoke, as it were, to the knowledge 
that once more a human habitation had been reached 
and officials had to be interviewed. 

A note to the Maltese Mudir, or governor of the 
town, brought that gentleman speedily to our tents, 


224 TUTANKHAMEN 


obviously pleased almost to tears to have the oppor- 
tunity of relieving for an hour the utter boredom of his 
existence. ‘The Mudir was an enforced lotus-eater. 
Corpulent of figure, and suffering the discomforts of a 
wall-eye; having practically no duties to perform other 
than those of the brief official routine; and having no 
European to talk to except his wife, his little daughter, 
and an Austrian mechanic, there was nothing left for 
him to do but to dream of the time when a benevolent 
government should transfer him to a less isolated post. 
The four of us will not soon forget the ample figure of 
our guest, clad in white duck, as he sat upon the edge 
of our one real camp-stool in the candle-light, and told 
us in disused English how little there is to tell regard- 
ing a man’s life in this sleepy town. There was never 
a more desolate smile than that which wreathed his 
face as he spoke of the ennwi of life, nor a braver 
twinkle than that which glinted in his single eye as the 
humour of his misfortunes touched him; and though 
we should meet again in many a merrier situation—for 
officials are not left over long at Kossair—none of us 
will cease to picture this uncomplaining servant of the 
government as, with unsmoked cigarette and untasted 
whisky-and-soda, he told us that evening the meaning 
of four years of exile. 

Kossair, when he first entered upon his duties, was 
a town of 1,500 inhabitants; but these persons were so 
miserably poor, and found so little to do, that at their 
own request the government transported about a 
thousand of them to Suez and the neighbourhood where 
the lotus does not grow and a man has to keep awake. 
Now there were but 500 souls in the town, 300 of whom 
were women and children. ‘These people wed very 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 225 


young, and there is much family inter-marriage; but, 
though they are a poor lot to look at, there is little 
mental degeneracy which can be traced to this cause. 
The Mudir, who was also in charge of the coastguards, 
was responsible for law and order in Kossair; there 
was a Syrian doctor in charge of the government dis- 
pensary; the above-mentioned Austrian mechanic 
looked after the engine for distilling the salt water; a 
coastguard officer and three men patrolled the coast; 
four or five sailors were attached to the port; and a 
native schoolmaster taught the children to read and 
write: this constituted the official element in the town. 
The inhabitants were all either of Arab or Ababdeh 
stock, Egyptians being entirely wanting. They live 
mainly on fish and a little imported bread; but before 
the population was reduced some of the poorer families 
were actually eating chopped straw and other food fit 
only for animals. 

There is very little to be done here, and most of 
the inhabitants sleep for two-thirds of the day. A 
fast-diminishing trade necessitates the occasional build- 
ing or mending of a boat. This trade is done with 
camels and goats, which are brought across from 
Arabia and are led over the desert to the Nile, where 
they are sold at Keneh or elsewhere, the money being 
partly expended on grain, which is then carried back 
to Arabia. Pilgrims on the way to and from Mecca 
use these vessels occasionally, but the mariners of 
Kossair cannot be bothered to extend the traffic. 

Except for one small group of palms, there is abso- 
lutely no vegetation whatever in the neighbourhood, 
and even an attempt to grow a few bushes or flowers 
near the governor’s quarters, though carefully persisted 


226 TUTANKHAMEN 


in for some time, proved an utter failure. For his 
supplies the Mudir was entirely dependent on the ar- 
rival of the government steamer every second month; 
and if, as had happened at the time of our visit, this 
steamer was late, the unfortunate gentleman became 
comparatively thin from sheer starvation. Except for 
occasional travellers or prospectors no white men ever 
visit Kossair; though if there is cholera at Mecca, an 
English doctor is sometimes sent to prevent the disease 
from passing into Egypt along this route. Letters and 
telegrams are every week conveyed across the desert 
by an express rider to Keneh, and an answer to a tele- 
gram might be expected in about a week. 

A large sea-water distillery, set up some years ago, 
provides the town with pure water; but so few are the 
inhabitants that it is only worked twice a month. This 
good supply of water is largely responsible for the 
lack of sickness in the town. During the four years 
previous to our visit, only twenty persons had died, and 
of these ten were very young children and ten were 
very old people. During these years the serious ill- 
nesses had only consisted of two cases of diphtheria; 
there had been no cholera, enteric, dysentery or plague. 
Many of the inhabitants live to be centenarians, and 
in the town we saw several tottering old Methuselahs, 
who looked as though the gods of the Underworld had 
forgotten them utterly. 

Of sports there were none for the Mudir to indulge 
in. There was no shooting; he could not bathe, even if 
he desired to, because of the sharks; there were no 
boats to sail in worthy the names; he could not leave 
his post to make camel trips to interesting localities, 
‘even if that amused him, which it did not; and the one 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 227 


pastime, the catching of crayfish on the coral reefs, 
bored him to distraction. ‘The climate is so monoto- 
nously perfect that it does not form a topic even of 
thought; in winter it is mild and sunny, in summer it is 
mild and sunnier. It is never very cold nor very hot, 
except for the few days in summer when a hot east wind 
is blowing. The Mudir said that he neither increased 
nor decreased the amount of his clothing the whole year 
round, but always wore his underclothes, his tight 
white duck tunic, his loose white duck trousers, his 
elastic-sided boots, and his red tarbush or fez. 

After breakfast next morning we walked along the 
beach to the stiff, mustard-coloured government build- 
ings, which stand on a point of land projecting some- 
what into the sea. A spick-and-span pier and quay, 
ornamented with three or four old French cannon and 
some neat piles of cannon-balls, gave us the impression 
that we had been transported suddenly to a small 
English watering-place; but passing into the building, 
that impression was happily removed at once. 
Through the sunny courtyard we went and up the stair, 
saluted at intervals by the coast-guardsmen, who had 
donned their best uniforms for the occasion, and at last 
we were ushered into the presence of our Maltese 
friend, now seated in state at his office table at the far 
end of a large, airy room. The windows overlooked 
the glorious blue sea, and the breath of an ordinary 
English summer drifted into the room, bringing with it 
the sigh of the waves. Nothing could have been more 
entrancing than the soft air and the sun-bathed scene, 
but to the Mudir it was anathema, and his back was 
resolutely turned to the windows. 

After coffee and a brief conversation, we were taken 


228 TUTANKHAMEN 


to see the water distillery, of which the town is im- 
mensely proud; and from thence we were conducted 
to the chief mosque of the place, a picturesque old 
building which has seen better days. We were readily 
admitted by the Reader, who, however, turned up the 
grass matting which covered the floor, in order, so the 
Mudir said, that our feet might not be dirtied by it, but 
in reality in order that the footstep of a Christian 
should not defile it. A few men were praying languidly 
at one side of the building, and in the opposite corner 
a man lay snoring upon his back. ‘There was the 
silence of sleep upon the place, and, returning to the 
almost deserted lanes between the houses outside, there 
was hardly a sound to disturb the stillness of the morn- 
ing. In the bazaar a few people were gathered around 
two or three shops, at which business had nigh ceased. 
A limp-limbed jeweller was attempting to sell a rough 
silver ring to a yawning youth and, if I am not mis- 
taken, a young girl who watched the transaction with 
very mild interest from the opposite side of the road 
was to be the recipient of the jewel. Soon we passed 
the open door of the schoolroom, where a dozen chil- 
dren chanted their Arabic A B C in a melancholy 
minor; and presently we came to the chief sight of 
Kossair—the old fortress, built by the French at the 
end of the eighteenth century. 

One enters the building through a masonry arch- 
way, closed by a heavy wooden door clamped with iron. 
There are still three or four cannon inside it to tell of 
its past life, but now the rooms and courts are white- 
washed and are used as camel stables by the coast- 
guards. I know no books which will tell me the details 
of the Anglo-French struggle for the possession of 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 229 


Kossair, and I must therefore leave it to my readers 
to correct my ignorant statements. It appears, then, 
that a French force occupied the fortress during the 
time of Napoleon’s rule in Egypt, and that one fine 
day in the year 1800, there came sailing over the sea a 
squadron of English men-o’-war, which landed a 
storming party so formidable that the French were 
constrained to evacuate the place and to retreat across 
the desert to Keneh. With the English force there was 
a large body of Indian troops, and these were marched 
across to the Nile in pursuit of the French; but ere 
more serious operations had taken place, the capitula- 
tion of Napoleon’s army brought the campaign to a 
close. It is said that when the Indian soldiers saw the 
representation of the sacred cow of Hathor upon the 
walls of the temples of Koptos and Qus, they fell upon 
their knees and did obeisance as in their own temples. 

The inhabitants of Kossair live to such an age and in 
such stagnation, that the stirring events of these old 
days are still talked of, and Englishmen are here still 
endowed with the prestige of conquerors. Involunta- 
rily we held our heads higher as an old Shékh pointed 
out the gate through which the French fled, and that 
through which the English bluejackets entered; and 
walking through the quiet streets back to the tents, we 
gave a nautical hitch to our trousers, talked contemp- 
tuously of “Boney,” discussed the plans of Lord 
Nelson, named the yawning natives whom we passed, 
“lazy lubbers,” murmured “Shiver my timbers,” called 
one another “me hearty,” and, in a word, acted faith- 
lessly to the Entente Cordiale. 

In camp, the remainder of the day was spent in 
that vague pottering which the presence of the sea al- 


230 TUTANKHAMEN 


ways induces. There were some beautiful shells upon 
the shore to attract us, and natives brought others for 
sale, lying down to sleep in the shade of the kitchen 
tent until we deigned to give them attention. There 
were sketches to be made and photographs to be taken. 
Amidst the houses at the south end of the town, some 
frdgments of a Ptolemaic temple were stumbled upon, 
and the inscriptions thereon had to be copied. ‘These 
were too fragmentary to be of much importance, and 
except for the above mentioned ancient name of Kos- 
sair there written, no point of particular interest re- 
quires to be noted here. We lunched and dined off 
the most excellent fish, a species named belbul being 
particularly palatable, while crayfish and a kind of 
cockle were immoderately indulged in. Having ar- 
ranged to try our hand at the catching of crayfish 
during the night hours, we turned in early to sleep for 
a short time until the fishermen should call us. 

The summons having come at about 11 p.m., we 
set out along the moonlit shore, two fishermen and a 
boy accompanying us, carrying nets and lanterns. 
Our destination was a spot at which the coral reefs, 
projecting into the sea, presented so flat a surface that 
the incoming tide would wash over the whole area at 
a depth of not more than a few inches. In the shallow 
water, we were told, the crayfish would crawl, attracted 
by our lanterns, and we could then pick them up with 
our fingers. These crayfish are not at first sight dis- 
tinguishable from large lobsters, though a second 
glance will show that the difference lies in the fact that 
they have no claws, and therefore can be caught with 
impunity. They are fearsome-looking creatures, never- 
theless, often measuring twenty inches or so from head 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 231 


to tail. In eating them it is hard to believe that one 
is not eating the most tasty of lobsters. 

A tedious walk of over three miles somewhat 
damped our ardour; and as the fishermen told us that 
the moon was too high and the tide too low for good 
hunting, we were not in the best spirits when at last 
we turned on to the coral reef. Here, however, the 
scene was so weirdly picturesque that the catching of 
the crayfish became a matter of secondary import. The 
surface of the reef, though flat, was broken and jag- 
ged, and much seaweed grew upon it. In the uncer- 
tain light of the moon it was difficult to walk without 
stumbling; but the ghostly figures of the fishermen 
hovered in front of us, and silently led the way out 
towards the sea, which uttered continuously a kind of 
sobbing as it washed over the edges of the coral reef. 
This and the unholy wail of the curlews were the only 
sounds, for the fishermen had imposed silence on us, 
and the moonlight furthered their wishes. 

As we walked over the reef we had to pick our way 
between several small patches of water some five or 
six feet in breadth, which appeared to be shallow pools, 
left by the last tide in the slight depressions of the 
rock. Presently, however, I noticed that in these pools 
white clouds appeared to be reflected by the sky, but 
quickly looking up, I saw that the heavens were cloud- 
less. Staring closer at the water, it suddenly dawned 
upon me that these white clouds were in reality the sand 
at the bottom of the pools, and as suddenly came the 
discovery that that bottom lay at a depth of fifteen 
feet or more. Now I went on hands and knees to gaze 
down at these moonlit depths, and I realised that each 
pool was a great globular cavern, the surface area 


232 TUTANKHAMEN 


being but the small mouth of it. Calling my friends, 
we soon found ourselves kneeling on a projecting ridge 
of coral, which was deeply undermined all round; and 
looking down into the bowl, we were reminded of noth- 
ing so much as of an aquarium tank seen through glass. 
In the moonlight the cloudy bottom of the caverns 
could be discerned, whereon grew great anemones and 
the fair flowers of the sea. Sometimes an arched gal- 
lery, suffused with pale light, led from one cavern to 
the next, the ceiling of these passages decorated with 
dim plants, the floor with coloured shells. Not easily 
could we have been carried so completely into the 
realms of fairyland as we were by gazing at these 
depths. Presently there sailed through the still water 
the dim forms of fishes, and now through the galleries 
there moved two shining lamps, as though carried by 
the little men of the sea to light them amidst the 
anemones. Two more small lamps passed into the 
cavern and floated through the water, now glowing 
amidst the tendrils of the sea plants, now rising 
towards the surface, and now sinking again to the 
shells, the sand, and the flowers at the bottom. 

It was not at once that we could bring ourselves 
to realise that these lights were the luminous eyes of a 
strange fish, the name of which I do not know; but 
now the fishermen,, who had suddenly drawn their net 
across the edge of the reef and had driven a dozen leap- 
ing creatures on to the exposed rock, beckoned us to 
look at this curious species at close quarters. Their 
bodies were transparent, and from around their mouths 
many filmy tentacles waved. The eyes were large and 
brown in colour, and appeared as fantastic stone orbs 
set in a glass body. Many other varieties of fish were 


THK RED SEA HIGHROAD 233 


caught as the tide came in; but it appeared that the 
moon was too powerful for successful sport in regard 
to the crayfish, and the catch consisted of but four of 
these. The sight of the fairy caverns, however, was 
entertainment sufficient for one night; and it was with 
discontent that we turned away from these kingdoms 
of the sea to return in the small hours of the morning 
to the tents. The moonlight, the sobbing of the ocean, 
the deep caverns lit by unearthly lamps, left an im- 
pression of unreality upon the mind which it was not 
easy to dispel; and I think we all felt that a glance had 
been vouchsafed through the forbidden gates, and a 
glimpse had been obtained of scenes unthought of since 
the days of our childhood. Had we also tasted of the 
lotus, and was this but one of the dreams of dreamy 
Kossair? 

Upon the following day I rode northwards along the 
coast, to visit the site of the Ptolemaic port, which lies 
about five miles from the modern town. An hour’s ride 
' against a hard wind brought us to the little inlet, 
around which the mounds and potsherds of the town 
are scattered. The water in the bay was of the deepest 
blue; a rolling plain of yellow sand lay eastwards, 
backed by the darker ranges of mountains; and over- 
head the white clouds raced by. The sea washed up 
in a line of white breakers on to a rising bar of sand, 
sparkling with a thousand varieties of shells. Behind 
this bar were pools of water passing inland, and here 
there may have been an artificial harbour. On the south 
side of the bay bold rocks jutted into the sea, and on 
the north there rose a series of mounds upon which the 
remains of the old town were strewn. Walking over 
‘these mounds, where the rhythmic roar of the surf falls 


234 TUTANKHAMEN 


continuously upon the ears, my mind was filled with 
thoughts of the ancient port which has so utterly fal- 
len, and of that ancient commerce with the East which 
must have been so full of adventure and romance to 
the men of old. Here from these mounds the towns- 
people have watched the great galleys set out over the 
seas for the mysterious land of Hind, and have seen 
the wealth of Pount and Arabia unloaded upon the 
quay; and here, so many centuries later, the labours of 
Egyptologists are beginning to make it possible to re- 
call something of what they saw, though the spade of 
the excavator has not yet touched this site. 

There are two wells within reach of this spot, but 
both are two or three hours’ journey away, and the 
water question must have been a serious one. The well 
to the north is named Bir Guah, and the other, to the 
west, is called Bir Mahowatat. The latter is the name 
of a tribe of Bedouin living at Suez, who state that 
they came originally from El] Wij, in Arabia. It is 
interesting to find that a well here should be named 
after them, for El Wij is nearly opposite this point, 
and one may realise thus what intercourse there is and 
always has been between Arabia and Egypt, even as 
far south as Kossair. 

Returning with the wind at our backs, we soon 
reached Kossair, and rode through the sleepy streets of 
the town to our tents. ‘To tea in the afternoon came 
the Mudir, who for an hour or so entertained us with 
tales of ennui. Kossair fell asleep when the Roman 
Empire fell, awoke for a moment in the days of Napo- 
leon, but slid into slumber once more over a century 
ago. ‘There was a time when the east coast steamers 
used to call here, but now even they have left the town 


THE RED SEA HIGHROAD 235 


to its long siesta. As we listened to the story of decay- 
ing trade and languid idleness, the vision of 'Tennyson’s 
lotus-eater was ever in the mind; and our sympathy 
was as profound for an official stationed here as was 
our envy of the man who might be permitted to rest 
himself for awhile from his labours upon this mild, 
sunny shore. The Mudir was, at the time of our visit, 
anxiously awaiting the tardy arrival of the steamer 
which was to take him and his family to Suez for three 
months’ leave, and his eye fixed itself upon the sea at 
every pause in the conversation; and when he bid us 
farewell at the door of the tent, it was but to return to 
his own doorway, where he might watch for the distant 
smoke until the sun should set. 

Early next morning we commenced the return 
journey to the Nile. As we rode away over the slop- 
ing sand towards the hills in the west, we turned in 
our saddles to obtain a last view of the strange little 
dream-town which was sinking so surely to its death. 
The quiet sea rippled upon the sunlit shore in one long 
line of blue from the houses on the north to the Tur- 
quoise Mountains on the south. Not a trace of smoke 
nor a sound rose from the town. On the beach a group 
of three men lay sleeping, with their arms behind their 
heads, while two others crouched languidly on their 
haunches, watching our disappearing cavalcade. Then, 
in the silence of the morning, there came to us on the 
breeze the soft call to prayer from the minaret of the 
mosque. We could not hear the warbled words; but 
to the sleeping figures on the beach, we thought, they 
must surely be akin to those of the song of the lotus- 
eaters :-— 


236 TUTANKHAMEN 


“How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 
With half-shut eyes ever to seem 
Falling asleep in a half-dream! 
To hear each other’s whispered speech; 
Eating the lotus day by day, 
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 
And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy. .. . 


bP] 


On the quay in the far distance we could just dis- 
cern a portly white figure, gazing steadfastly out to 
sea, to catch the first ghmpse of the steamer which had 
been awaited so patiently for so long. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 


HOSE who have travelled in Italy, and have 
studied in the museums and in the ruins there 
the sculpture and the architectural accessories 
of the Roman Imperial age, will be familiar with the 
magnificent purple stone known as Imperial Porphyry. 
It was one of the most highly prized of the ornamental 
stones employed by the artists and architects of that 
age of luxury; and the great distance which it had to 
be brought, over parched deserts and perilous seas, 
must have sent its price up beyond the reach of all save 
the rulers of the earth. 

The quarries from which this porphyry was obtained 
are situated in the region known as Gebel Dukhan, 
“the Hills of Smoke,” in the Eastern Egyptian Desert, 
some twenty-seven miles from the uninhabited and un- 
explored coast of the Red Sea, opposite the southern 
end of the Peninsula of Sinai. Two or three travellers 
during the last century have visited them, and the Sur- 
vey Department of the Egyptian Government has pub- 
lished a technical report on the district; but with the 
exception of this and an article by the German explorer, 
Schweinfurth, the literature on the subject, such as it 
is, seems to be more or less untraceable. In 1887, a 
gentleman of the name of Brindley, obtained a conces- 


sion there for the re-working of the quarries, but the 
237 


238 TUTANKHAMEN 


project fell through owing to the difficulties of trans- 
porting the stone. 

A few years ago, Mr. John Wells, the Director of 
the now defunct Department of Mines, decided to make 
an expedition to Gebel Dukhan to report on the possi- 
bilities of reopening the old works; and it was with 
considerable pleasure that I received, and found myself 
able to accept, his invitation to accompany him, in order 
to see how far the Department of Antiquities could 
concur in the projects of modern engineers. 

We set out from Keneh, a town on the Nile some 
400 miles above Cairo, in the middle of March: a time 
of the year when one cannot be sure of good weather in 
Egypt, for the winter and the summer fight together 
for the mastery, and the hot south winds vie with the 
cold north winds in ferocity. Sandstorms are frequent 
in the desert in this month, and these, though seldom 
dangerous, can be extremely disagreeable. We were, 
however, most fortunate in this respect; and, in spite 
of the fact that the winds were strong, I do not recall 
any particular discomfort experienced from them, 
though memory brings back the not rare vision of men 
struggling with flapping tents and flying ropes. Our 
caravan consisted of some fifty camels, of which about 
thirty-five carried the baggage and water; a dozen were 
ridden by ourselves, Mr. Wells’ police, our native as- 
sistants, and others; and two or three belonged to the 
Shékh and the guides. 

The business of setting out is always trying to the 
patience. The camel-men attempt to load their beasts 
lightly in order that more may be employed; they 
dawdle over the packing that the day’s journey may be 
short; the camels, unused to their burdens, perform 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 239 


such antics as may rid them the most quickly of the 
incubus; the untried ropes break as the last knot is 
tied, and the loads fall to the ground; the riding camels 
are too fresh, and, groaning loudly, revolve in small 
circles, as though one’s whistle of encouragement were 
a waltz. 

There are no people in the world so slovenly, so un- 
practical, or so asinine as the lower class inhabitants 
of the Eastern Desert. One has heard so often of the 
splendid desert tribes, of fine figures and flashing eyes, 
of dignity and distinction, of gracious manners and 
lofty words, that one has come to expect the members 
of a caravan to be as princely as they are picturesque. 
It is a shock to find them but ragged weaklings, of low 
intelligence and little dignity. 

Is this, one asks, a son of the proud Bedouin whose 
ears are now being boxed by one’s servant? And are 
these the brave men of the desert who are being kicked 
into shape by that smart negro policeman, the son of 
slaves? Look now, eight or ten of the Bedouin have 
quarrelled over their camels, and are feeling for their 
knives in preparation for a fight: shall we not see some 
stirring action, reminiscent of the brave days of old? 
No; the black policeman seizes his camel-whip and ad- 
ministers to as many as he can catch of the flying 
wretches as sound a beating as any naughty boys might 
receive. Lean-faced, hungry-eyed, and rather upright 
in carriage, they may be expected to be quick-witted 
and endowed with common-sense. Yet of all stupid 
people these unwashed miseries are the stupidest; and 
as one sees them at the starting of a caravan, muddling 
the ropes, upsetting the loads, yawning, scratching 
themselves, squabbling in high, thin voices, and trip- 


240 TUTANKHAMEN 


ping over their antiquated swords and long guns, one’s 
dream of the Bedouin in this part of the desert fades 
and no more returns. 

Perhaps, however, it is the point of view which is at 
fault. Did we live in the desert without a deed to do 
or a thought to think beyond those connected with the 
little necessities of life, and with so vague a knowledge 
of time and distance as such an existence requires, our 
notion of the practical might be different, and our idea 
of intelligence might be less lofty. Perhaps, too, I did 
not meet with the genuine types of the race; for the 
camel-drivers employed by an economical Shékh, and 
the goatherds who wander through the valleys, may be 
but the riff-raff cast off from the more remote tribes. 
Moreover, there are a few exceptions to the general rule 
which may be met with even amongst the camel-men, but 
these are hardly sufficiently notable to record. 

At last a start was made; and riding north-east- 
wards over the hot, sandy plain, we trotted slowly to- 
wards the distant limestone hills which rose above a 
shifting mirage of lake-like vapour. For some miles 
our road led over the hard, flat desert; but oppor- 
tunely at the lunching hour we passed a spur of rock 
which afforded welcome shade, and here we rested for 
an hour or so. At this point there is a well, known 
as Bir Arras, rather prettily situated amidst tamarisk- 
bushes and desert scrub; but as it is only ten miles dis- 
tant from Keneh it is not much used by travellers. 
Riding on in the afternoon, we verged somewhat to 
the left, and passed along a valley much broken up by 
low mounds of sand collected round the decayed roots 
of bushes; and here several thriving tamarisks and 
other small trees lent colour to the scene. Soon we 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 241 


turned again to the left, and presently crossed two 
projecting spurs of the low hills, upon which beacons 
of stone had been erected in Roman days, on either 
side of the track, to mark the road. It is interesting 
to find that along the whole length of the route from 
Keneh to the quarries these piles of stone have been 
placed at irregular intervals in order that the traveller 
should have no difficulty in finding his way. 

Towards evening the tracks led us up the clearly 
marked bed of a dry river, bordered by tamarisks and 
other bushes; and, passing along this for a short dis- 
tance, we called a halt, and pitched the tents amongst 
the sand hillocks to one side. The following morning 
we were on the road soon after sunrise; and, riding 
along the dry river-bed, we presently reached the Ro- 
man station of El Ghaiteh, which lies, in all, some 
seven and a half hour’s trot from Keneh. ‘This is the 
first of the Roman posts on the road from Keneh to 
Gebel Dukhan, and here the ancient express caravans 
halted for the night. At the foot of a low hill there is 
a fortified rectangular enclosure, in which several 
rooms with vaulted roofs are built. The walls are con- 
structed of broken stones, and still stand some twelve 
feet or more in height. The entrance is flanked by 
round towers, and passing through it one sees on the 
left a large tank, built of burnt bricks and cement, in 
which the water, brought from the well in the plain 
was stored. Just to the north of the station there are 
the ruins of the animal lines, where rough stone walls 
have been built on a well-ordered plan, forming a court- 
yard in which the stalls run in parallel rows. Above 
the enclosure, on the hill-top, there are some carefully 


242 TUTANKHAMEN 


constructed buildings of sun-dried brick, which may 
have been the officers’ quarters. 

Resting in the shade of the ruins, our eyes wandered 
over the sun-burnt desert to the hazy hills beyond, and 
thence back along the winding river-bed to the bushes 
at the foot of the hill, where the camels lazily cropped 
the dry twigs, and where green dragon-flies hovered 
against the intensely blue sky. Then again the ruins 
claimed our attention, and presently we seemed to for- 
get the things of the present time and to drift back 
to the days when the blocks of Imperial Porphyry were 
heaved and hoisted, carried and dragged along this road 
to the Nile and to Rome. 

A ride of somewhat over three hours across wide, 
undulating, gravel plains brought us to the next Roman 
station, known as Es Sargieh, which lies between two 
low mounds just to the north of the main track. Here 
a large excavation has been made in order to obtain 
water, and at its edge there are the remains of troughs 
and tanks constructed of brick and cement. The sand 
and clay from the excavation have been thrown up in 
an embankment, so as to form a rectangular enclosure. 
At one end there are the ruins of a few chambers, and 
the animal lines near by are clearly marked. Es Sar- 
gieh marks the point where the road divides, one track 
leading to Gebel Dukhan, and the other to the white 
granite quarries of Um Etgal; and it was thus an im- 
portant watering station. 

From this point for the rest of the day our road lay 
across a hard flat plain, bounded in the distance ahead 
by the dim peaks of granite mountains. As we had 
stopped some considerable time at the two Roman 
ruins, the baggage camels and men had pushed far in 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 243 


advance, and, with characteristic stupidity, continued 
to do so, though the sun went down and the stars came 
out. It was not till long past dinner-time that, riding 
furiously through the empty darkness, we managed 
to catch them up; and hungry, aching, and cross, we 
quickly devoured a cold meal and rolled into bed. 
During the night a gale of wind came near to over- 
throwing the tents, for we had bivouacked where we 
had overtaken the caravan, upon the vast, exposed 
plain. The night air felt bitterly cold as, clad in 
pyjamas, I pulled at ropes and hammered at pegs; and 
it was a surprise to find the thermometer standing at 
32 degrees Fahrenheit at this time of year. 

Having camped in the darkness, it was not till day- 
break that we realised that we had now crossed the 
plain, and were already near the mouth of a valley 
which led into an unexplored region of dark rocks be- 
tween two ranges of hills. Not long after sunrise we 
mounted our camels, and presently passed into this val- 
ley—the first men of our generation to do so. Jagged 
- cliffs towered above the road, and behind them the soft 
brown hills rose in an array of dimly seen peaks. A 
ride of two hours up this valley—that is to say, alto- 
gether about five hours’ trot from Es Sargieh—brought 
us to the Roman station of E] Atrash. There is a forti- 
fied enclosure containing several regularly arranged 
buildings, a tank, and a deep, circular well constructed 
of brick. The gateway is flanked by brick towers, up 
which the steps can still be traced. Outside the en- 
closure there are the usual animal lines; and near by 
there lies a large block of porphyry which must have 
been abandoned for some reason on its way to the river. 
The scenery here is wild and desolate. There was a 


244 TUTANKHAMEN 


feeling, as the eye passed from range to range of men- 
acing hills, untrodden by the foot of man, that one was 
travelling in the moon. The day was cold and misty, 
and the sharp air already told of the altitude to which 
we had risen—now nearly 2,000 feet. 

From here the road led through valleys lying be- 
tween hills of ever-increasing height. The colour of 
the rocks now changed from a deep brown to a kind of 
soft purple; while the ground over which we were mov- 
ing, being composed of particles of red granite, turned 
to a curious rosy hue. It was as though one were look- 
ing through tinted glass; and these combinations of 
colour—the red valley, the purple hills, and the grey 
sky—gave the scene a beauty indescribable. We 
lunched in the shadow of the rocks, and sleeping on the 
ground thereafter one’s dreams were in mauves and 
burnt siennas. 

Mounting again and riding along this wonderful 
valley, feeling more than ever like Mr. H. G. Wells’ 
men in the moon, early in the afternoon we reached the 
Roman station of Wady Gatar, which lies in a hollow 
amidst lofty hills, some three and a half hours’ ride 
from El Atrash. The station consists, as before, of an 
enclosure, chambers, disused well, and animal lines; but 
it is more ruined than the other posts which we had 
seen, ‘There is a well not far from this point, to which 
the camels were sent to be watered; and we were thus 
able to spend a quiet afternoon in our camp amongst 
the hills. 

Towards sunset I climbed to the top of a low mound 
of rocks which overlooked the fortress, and there the 
silence of the evening and the strangeness of the sur- 
rounding hues enhanced to a point almost of awe the 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES) 245 


sense of aloofness which this part of the desert imposes 
upon one. On the right the line of a valley drew the 
eyes over the dim, brown waves of gravel to the dark- 
ness of the rugged horizon. Behind, and sweeping up- 
ward, the sky was a golden red; and this presently 
turned to green, and the green to deep blue. On the 
left some reflected light tinged the eastern sky with 
a suggestion of purple, and against this the nearer 
mountains stood out darkly. In front the low hills met 
together, and knit themselves into shapes so strange 
that one might have thought them the distortions of a 
dream. There was not a sound to be heard, except once 
when an unseen flight of migratory birds passed with a 
soft whirr high overhead. The light was dim,—too dark 
to read the book which I carried. Nor was there much 
desire to read; for the mind was wandering, as the eyes 
were, in an indistinct region of unrealities, and was 
almost silent of thought. 

Then in the warm, perfect stillness, with the whole 
wilderness laid prone in that listless haze which antici- 
pates the dead sleep of night, there came—at first 
almost unnoticed—a small, black, moving mass, creep- 
ing over an indefinite hill-top. So silently it appeared, 
so slowly moved nearer, that I was inclined to think 
it a part of the dream, a vague sensation passing across 
the solemn, sleepy mind of the desert. Presently, very 
quietly, the mass resolved itself into a compact flock of 
goats, Now it was drawing nearer, and I could discern 
with some degree of detail the little procession—the 
procession of dream-ideas, it might have been, for it was 
difficult to face facts in the twilight. Along the valley 
it moved, and, fluttering in the wind, there arose a 
plaintive bleating and the wail of the goatherd’s pipe. 


246 TUTANKHAMEN 


He—one could see him now—was walking in advance 
of his flock, and his two hands held a reed from which 
he was pouring the ancient melodies of his race. From 
the hill-top I could look down on the flock as it passed 
below. It had become brown in colour; and as the pipe 
ceased awhile the shuffle and patter of a hundred little 
hoofs could be heard. It was a gentle sound, more 
inclined to augment than to diminish the dreamy char- 
acter of the procession. Behind the flock two figures 
moved, their white garments fluttering in the wind, 
changing grotesquely the form and shape of the wear- 
ers. Over the gravel they went, and at a distance fol- 
lowed the dogs of the herd, growling as they passed. 
Over the gravel and down the valley, and with them 
went the gentle patter and the wandering refrain of 
the reed pipe. ‘Then a bend in the path, or may be the 
fading of the dream, and the flock was seen no more. 
But in the darkness which had gathered the mind was 
almost too listless to feel that aught had passed beyond 
its pale, 

We left the Wady Gatar the next day soon after 
lunch and entered another fine valley. On the right 
the granite cliffs sloped up to the misty sky in clean, 
sheer faces of rock. On the left range after range of 
dimly peaked hills carried one’s thoughts into the 
clouds, The afternoon was sunless and the air bracing 
and keen. ‘The camels, after their long drink, were 
ready for work, and we were soon swinging up the 
valley at a brisk trot. The road turned from side to 
side, now leading in a dozen clear tracks up the wide 
gravelled bed of some forgotten torrent, and now pass- 
ing in a single narrow path from one valley to the next. 
With every turn new groups of mountains became visi- 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 247 


ble and higher peaks slid into sight. The misty air lent 
a softness to these groups, blending their varied colours 
into almost celestial harmonies of tone. Gradually the 
ranges mounted, until at last, as the afternoon began 
to draw in, the towering purple mountains of Gebel 
Dukhan rose from behind the dark rocks to the left of 
our road. 

It was almost sunset before we reached the foot of 
this range, and the cloudy sun was passing behind the 
more distant hills as a halt was called. We were now 
in a wide, undulating valley, which was hemmed in by 
the superb mountains on three sides and disclosed low, 
open country towards the north-east. The beams of 
the hidden sun shone up from behind the dark hills in a 
sudden glare of brightness, and presently the clouded 
sky turned to a deep crimson. The lofty peaks of the 
southern mountains now caught the disappearing sun- 
shine and sprang out of the mist in a hundred points of 
vivid red. For only a few minutes the conflagration 
lasted, but before it had fully died out the vaporous out- 
lines in the far distance towards the north-east took 
form and colour, and the last gleam of sunlight re- 
vealed, some twenty miles away, the thin line of the 
sea, and above it the stately mountains of Sinai. A 
moment later the vision had passed, the sun had set, and 
in the gathering darkness the baggage camels, lumber- 
ing round a bend, came into sight, calling our attention 
to more material things. 

In the semi-darkness, while our meal was being pre- 
pared, we visited a Roman station which stands in the 
Wady Bileh at the foot of the Gebel Dukhan moun- 
tains, about three and a quarter hours’ trot from the 
fortress of Wady Gatar. The porphyry quarries and 


248 TUTANKHAMEN 


the settlement lay in the valley at the other side of the 
range of hills at the foot of which we were now standing; 
and to reach them one might either climb by an ancient 
path over a pass in the range, or one might ride round 
by a tortuous valley—a journey said to be of nearly 
thirty miles. This station was the first night’s halting- 
place for express caravans returning from the quarries. 
At one side of the wide, ancient road stands the usual 
small enclosure, having a doorway flanked with towers, 
and containing a few ruined chambers and a well. At 
the other side a cluster of granite rocks rising into a 
small mound had been surrounded by a stout wall, 
either in order that it should serve as a fortress, or be- 
cause these rocks were for some reason sacred. There 
was nothing particularly noteworthy about the station, 
but, lying amidst such wild and magnificent scenery, it 
assumed in the half-light a charm which will not soon be 
forgotten. 

At dawn next morning we set out on foot to climb 
over the pass to the quarries. The sun was struggling 
to penetrate the soft mists as we started the actual 
ascent, and the air was cold and invigorating. Here 
and there we could detect the old Roman path passing 
up the hillside, but it was so much broken that a climb 
up the dry water-course, across which it zigzagged, was 
preferable. At the immediate foot of the pass there is 
a small Roman fort containing three or four rooms, and 
at the highest point, which is 3,150 feet above sea-level, 
there is a ruined rest-house, where the tired climber, no 
doubt, was able to obtain at least a pot of water. 

Here at the summit we had a wonderful view of the 
surrounding country. Behind us the mountains rose 
im a series of misty ranges, and before us lay the valley 


- ee 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 249 


of Gebel Dukhan winding between the porphyry hills, 
while beyond them the northern mountains rose to a 
height of some 6,000 feet in the distance. The Roman 
road, descending on this side, was well preserved, and 
we were able to run down the 1,200 feet or so, which 
brought us breathless to the level of the valley. The 
temple, town, and quarries lay about a mile down the 
wady, at a point where there was a considerable 
breadth of flat gravel between the hills on either side. 

The town ruins—a cluster of crowded houses en- 
closed by a fortified wall—stand on the slope of a hill. 
A fine terrace runs along the east side, and up to this 
a ramp ascends. Passing through the gateway one 
enters the main street, and the attention is first at- 
tracted by an imposing building on the right hand. 
Here there are several chambers leading into an eight- 
pillared hall, at the end of which a well-made and well- 
preserved plunge-bath eloquently tells of the small 
pleasures of expatriated Roman officers. A turning 
from the main street brings one into an open courtyard, 
where there are two ovens and some stone dishes to be 
seen, besides a large quantity of pottery fragments. 
Around this in every direction the little huts are hud- 
dled, narrow lanes dividing one set of chambers from 
the next. The town is, of course, very ruined; but it 
does not require much imagination to people it again 
with that noisy crowd of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian 
quarrymen. One sees them prising out the blocks of 
purple porphyry from the hillside high above the val- 
ley, returning in the evening down the broad causeway 
to the town, or passing up the steps to the temple which 
stands on a knoll of granite rocks a couple of hundred 
yards to the north-east, 


250 TUTANKHAMEN 


The steps lead up to a platform which formed the 
forecourt of the temple. This court is now covered 
with the ruins of what was once a fine granite portico 
rising on the east side. Four columns supported an 
inscribed architrave and decorated cornice, above which 
was the pediment or pointed roof. Behind this portico 
stood the sanctuary, built of broken stones carefully 
mortared and plastered to the necessary smoothness. 
A granite doorway led from one side into the vestry. In 
the forecourt, amidst the ruins, stands the granite altar, 
in its original position; and near it lies the architrave 
with the proud inscription: “For the safety and the 
eternal victory of our Lord Cesar Trajan Hadrian, 
absolute, august, and all his house; to the Sun, the 
great Serapis and to the co-enshrined gods, this temple, 
and all that is in it, is dedicated.”’ Then follow the 
names of the Governor of Egypt, the Superintendent 
of the Mines, and other officials. 

In the middle of the valley there is the well, which is 
now choked. A gallery, the roof of which was sup- 
ported by five pillars, passes in a half-circle round one 
side of the well; and a shallow drain in the pavement 
seems to have carried a stream of water along it. Here 
the workmen could sit in the shade to ease the thirst 
which exercise on the hot hills so soon creates; and on 
our return journey up the pass we looked back more 
than once to this cool gallery and to the plunge-bath 
with a kind of envy of the past. 

The quarries are cut here and there on the hillside 
without any regularity. The blocks of porphyry were 
prised out of the rock wherever the work could most 
easily be carried on, and the action of the years has so 
dulled the broken surfaces that they now look almost 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 251 


like those of the natural mountain. The blocks were 
carried down to the Nile, and in fact to Rome, in the 
rough, without even a preliminary dressing; for the 
work in this distant place had to be shortened as much 
as possible. 

Looking, in the European museums, at the fine 
capitals, the polished basins, the statues, and the many 
other objects cut out of Imperial Porphyry, one has 
admired the work of the mason or the genius of the 
artist. But here in the Hills of Smoke one thinks of 
these antiquities with a feeling bordering on veneration. 
If the workmanship tells of an art that is dead, how 
much louder does the material cry out the praises of 
an energy that is also dead? Each block of stone is 
the witness of a whole history of organisation and 
activity. This purple porphyry was not known to the 
ancient Egyptians: a Roman prospector must have 
searched the desert to find it. One would have thought 
that the aloofness of the valley from which it is to be 
procured would have kept its existence the secret of the 
hills; for on the one side a winding pathway, thirty 
miles in length, separates the spot from the little known 
main road, and on the other side a barrier of steep hills 
shuts it off from the Wady Bileh. 

Although Gebel Dukhan is so near the Red Sea, it 
was not possible for the stone to be transported by ship 
to Suez. The barren coast here was harbourless, ex- 
cept for the port of Myos Hormos, which was too far 
away to be practicable; and the stone would have had 
to be unloaded at Suez, and dragged across the desert 
to the neighbourhood of the modern Port Said. Every 
block of porphyry had therefore to be carried across 
the desert to Keneh, the old Kainepolis, on the Nile, 


252 TUTANKHAMEN 


and thence shipped by river-barge to the sea. Here it 
had to be trans-shipped to the great Mediterranean gal- 
leys, and thus conveyed across the treacherous sea to 
the port of Rome. 

Probably the blocks were dragged by oxen or men 
upon rough waggons, for the roads are not bad, except 
at certain places. To ride from Keneh to Wady Bileh, 
at the quiet five-miles-an-hour trot of the camel, took 
us altogether twenty-two and a half hours; that is to 
say, the total distance is about 112 miles or so. The 
winding path from Wady Bileh up the valley to the 
quarries brings this total to about 140 miles; and the 
caravans could not have covered this in less than eight 
days. On the first night after leaving Keneh the camp 
was probably pitched in the open. On the second night 
the station of El Ghaiteh was reached, and here there 
were provisions, water, and a small garrison. The 
third night was spent at Es Sargieh, where water was 
to be obtained. On the fourth night the houses of El 
Atrash sheltered the travellers, water and provisions 
being here obtainable. On the fifth night Wady Gatar 
was reached, where again there was a well. The sixth 
night was passed at Wady Bileh, from whence express 
messengers could pass over the hill to the quarries. 
The seventh night was spent in the open, and on the fol- 
lowing day the settlement was reached. 

The long road was rendered dangerous by the in- 
cursions of the desert peoples, and many of the hills be- 
tween the fortified stations are crowned with ruined 
watch-towers. Roman troops must have patrolled the 
road from end to end, and the upkeep of these garri- 
sons must have been a considerable expense. The 
numerous stone-cutters and quarrymen had to be fed 





IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 253 


and provided for; and for this purpose an endless train 
of supplies had to be brought from the Nile valley. 
Oxen or donkeys for this purpose, and for the trans- 
porting of the porphyry, had to be kept constantly on 
the move. Then, as now, there was always the danger 
of a break-down in the water-supply; and though the 
risk in this respect was not as great in those days as it 
is to the modern explorer, the quarrymen must have 
known that they carried their lives in their hands. At 
Keneh a service of barges had to be organised, and at 
the seaport the galleys had to be in readiness to brave 
the seas with their heavy loads. 

It is of all this—of the activity, the energy, the 
bravery, the power of organisation, the persistency, the 
determination—that an object executed in Imperial 
Porphyry tells the story. 

The quarries were worked until about the fifth cen- 
tury A.D., for the Byzantine Emperors derived from 
their Roman predecessors an affection for this fine pur- 
ple stone. There is a Greek inscription on the path 
leading up to one of the workings, which reads, 
“Katholeke Ekklesia,” and which is perhaps, the latest 
example of old-world activity in the Eastern Desert. 
There is no other place in the world where this 
porphyry is to be found, and when the quarries at last 
ceased to be worked, some time previous to the seventh 
century, the use of the stone had to cease also, nor has 
it ever again been procurable. 

I wonder whether there will come a time when some 
millionaire, fresh from the museums of Italy, will ex- 
press a wish to pave his bathroom with the purple stone 
of the emperors; and whether the Hills of Smoke will 
again ring with the sound of the hammer and chisel, 


254 TUTANKHAMEN 


in response to the demands of a new fashion. It may 
be that some day the tourist will awake to the advan- 
tages and attractions of the Eastern Desert as a mo- 
toring country, will rush through the wadys, will visit 
the ancient centres of activity, will see these quarries, 
and will desire the porphyry. With a little preparation 
the road from Keneh to Gebel Dukhan could be made 
practicable for automobiles; and when once the land 
ceases to be but the territory of the explorer and the 
prospector, one may expect its mineral products to be 
seen, to be talked of, and finally to be exploited. 

In the late afternoon we left the valley, and climbed 
slowly up the Roman road to the summit of the pass, 
halting here to drink deeply from our water-bottles. 
The descent down the dry watercourse was accom- 
plished in a long series of jumps from boulder to 
boulder, at imminent peril of a sprained ankle. The 
grey rocks were smooth and slippery, and between 
them there grew a yellow-flowered weed which, when 
trodden upon, was as orange-peel. The rapid rush 
down the hillside, the setting sun, and the bracing wind, 
caused our return to camp to take its place amongst 
the most delightful memories of the whole expedition. 
Once we halted, and borrowing the carbines of the na- 
tive police, we shot a match of half a dozen rounds 
apiece, with a spur of stone as target. The noise echoed 
amongst the rocks; and a thousand feet below we saw 
the ant-like figures of our retainers anxiously hurrying 
into the open to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. 

As we neared the bottom of the hill, the sun set, 
and once more this wonderful valley was lit with the 
crimson afterglow, and once more the mountains of 
Sinai stood out for a moment from the gathering mists 


—— 


a 


IMPERIAL PORPHYRY QUARRIES 255 


above the vivid line of the Red Sea. Darkness had 
fallen when at last, foot-sore and weary, we reached 
the camp; and I was almost too tired to enjoy the 
sponge-down in the half basin of water which is all that 
can be allowed in this waterless region, and the meal 
of tinned food which followed. As I fell to sleep that 
night, my dreams were all of strenuous labours; of 
straining oxen and sweating men; of weary marches 
and unsuspected ambushes; of the sand-banks of the 
Nile and the tempests of the sea. But ever in the dis- 
tance I seemed to be conscious of thoughtless, implaca- 
ble men, dipping their bejewelled fingers into the basins 
of purple porphyry as they reclined in the halls of Im- 
perial Rome. 

On the following morning our party divided, Mr. 
Wells and the greater part of the caravan going north- 
east to the petroleum wells of Gebel Zeit on the sea- 
coast, and I to Um Etgal, the Mons Claudianus of the 
ancients, where the white granite, also so much admired 
by the Romans, was quarried from the hillside. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 


journey made to the Imperial Porphyry quarries 

of Gebel Dukhan. I returned to the Nile by way 
of the white granite quarries of Um Etgal, the ancient 
Mons Claudianus, and thence past the old gold-work- 
ings of Fatireh to Keneh. 

My caravan was composed of a riding party, con- 
sisting of myself, my native assistant, my servant, and 
a guide; and a baggage train of a dozen camels and 
men, and a couple of guards. The guide was a pic- 
turesque, ragged old man, whose face was wizened and 
wrinkled by the glare of the desert. His camel was 
decked with swinging tassels of black and yellow, and 
across his saddle there was slung a gun at least seven 
feet long, while at his side there hung a broad-bladed 
sword in an old red leather case. In his belt there were 
two knives, and in his hand he carried a stout bludgeon, 
something in the form of a hockey-stick. This latter is 
the weapon most generally carried by the Ababdeh and 
other desert peoples, and its antiquity is evidenced by 
the fact that the earliest hieroglyph for ‘‘a soldier” in 
the script of ancient Egypt represents a figure holding 
just such a stick. 

The old guide was followed by three lean, yellow 
dogs, who seemed to be much bored by the journey and 


dejected by the sterility around. He was a man of 
256 


| N the previous chapter an account was given of a 





QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 257 


some dignity, and took considerable pride in riding at 
the head of the little procession in order to show the 
way, although, except at the cross-roads, the tracks 
were perfectly plain, and the ancient beacons were 
generally to be seen. Once or twice I made an attempt 
to pass him so that I might have an uninterrupted view 
of the scenery; for the sight of a ragged, huddled back 
and the hindquarters of a betasselled camel is inclined 
to pall after a while. But these efforts ended in a short, 
hard race, in which I was generally the loser; nor had 
I the heart to order the old man to the rear thereafter. 

We set out from the camp at Wady Bileh, the near- 
est point to Gebel Dukhan on the main road, soon after 
daybreak, and passed along the wonderful valley lead- 
ing back to the Roman station of Wady Gatdar, which 
I have already described, our route branching off to- 
wards the south just before reaching that place. ‘The 
road then led along a fine valley, up which a blustering 
north wind went whistling, and it was only by donning 
an overcoat and by trotting at a smart pace that I 
could pretend to feel comfortably warm. Soon after 
noon I halted near some thorn-trees, and in their shelter 
luncheon was presently spread. A _ vulture circling 
overhead watched our party anxiously, in the vain hope 
that somebody would drop dead, but on seeing us mount 
again to continue the journey it sailed away disgustedly 
over the windy hill-top. 

It was still cold and stormy when, after trotting 
altogether for five hours from Wady Bileh, we arrived 
at the well of Um Disi, where the camp was pitched in 
order that the camels might drink and graze. The well 
is the merest puddle in the sand amidst the smooth 
boulders of a dry watercourse, hidden under the over- 


258 TUTANKHAMEN 


hanging cliffs of granite. It lies in the corner of a wide 
amphitheatre of gravel and sand, completely shut in 
by the mountains. Bushes of different kinds grow in 
great profusion over this amphitheatre, and from the 
tent door, when the eye was tired of wandering upon 
the many-coloured hills, one might stare in a lazy dream 
at a very garden of vegetation, around which the grey 
wagtails flitted and the dragon flies slowly moved. It 
is an ideal place for a camp, and I but wished that more 
than a night could have been spent there; for I would 
have liked to have explored the surrounding hills and 
valleys, and to have stalked the gazelle which had left 
their footprints near the well. 

The nights up here in this locality, which must be 
some 1,500 or more feet above the sea, were bitterly 
cold, in spite of the approaching summer. There is 
perhaps no place where one more keenly feels a low 
temperature than in the desert; and here at Um Disi, 
where the air is that of the mountains, a colder night 
was passed than it has ever been my lot to endure— 
with the exception, perhaps, of one occasion when, with 
another student of archeology, I spent the night upon 
the flint-covered hill-tops of the Western Desert. On 
that occasion our baggage and bedding had failed to 
reach us, and we were obliged to sleep in our clothes and 
overcoats, dividing a newspaper to act as a cover for 
the neck and ears. By midnight we were so cold that 
we were forced to dance a kind of hornpipe in order to 
set the circulation going again in the veins; and my 
friend was light-hearted enough to accompany this war 
dance with a breathless rendering of the hymn, “We are 
but little children meek,” which had been dinned into 
his head, he told me, while staying at a mission school in 





‘ 
; 


QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 259 


another part of Egypt. Memory recalls the scene of 
the dark figure shuffling and swaying in the clear star- 
light, the biting wind whistling around the rocks in 
rhythmless accompaniment; and yet it does not seem 
that so much discomfort was then felt as was experi- 
enced in the flapping tent at Um Disi. 

The journey was continued early next morning, the 
road leading out from the amphitheatre through a 
gorge on the eastern side. ‘There was now some diffi- 
culty about the method of travelling, for only the guide 
knew the way, and, as he rode with us, there was dan- 
ger of our losing the slowly moving baggage camels, 
which always followed behind, catching us up at our 
halts for luncheon and other refreshment; and I was 
quite aware that to lose one’s water supply meant a 
very unpleasant death. I therefore took with me some 
bags of torn paper, and at every turning of the path, 
or at the cross-tracks, I threw down a few handfuls in 
the manner of a paper-chase; and thus, though the path 
here wound from one valley to another in the most per- 
plexing manner, the caravan reached its destination 
almost as soon as we. 

It was disappointing to find that our camel-men, 
born and bred in the desert, were unwilling to take the 
responsibility of following safely in our tracks. One 
would have thought that the footprints of our camels 
would have been as easy for them to trace on an unfre- 
quented path as torn paper is to us. The guide, on the 
other hand, showed a really wonderful knowledge of 
the intricate paths; for it is not reasonable to suppose 
that he had travelled between Gebel Dukhan and Um 
Etgal more than two or three times, this being off the 
main routes through the desert. He did not once hesi- 


260 TUTANKHAMEN 


tate or look round, although when questioned he de- 
clared that many years had passed since last he had 
been here. 

In these valleys we met, for the first time for some 
days, one or two Bedouin. A ragged figure, carrying 
a battle-axe and a medieval sword, sprang up from 
the rocks where he was tending a flock of goats, and 
hurried across to shake hands with our guide. The two 
entered into earnest conversation in low tones; and the 
old guide, after pointing with his lean finger to his bag 
of food, which was every day diminishing in size, and 
then to the hungry dogs, dismounted from his camel, 
tied up one of the dogs, and handed it over to his wild 
friend. A few hours later another ragged figure, this 
time a Bishari, carrying a long gun, ran forward to 
greet us, and to him the guide delivered over his second 
dog, after a similar discussion with regard to his food 
bag. For over a mile from this point, after the dog 
and his new master had diminished to mere specks on 
the rocks, the wind brought down to us the melancholy 
howls of the former and the unconcerned song of the 
latter to his goats. 

Our way led up the wide Wady Ghrosar, which ends 
in a pass, from the top of which a magnificent view is 
obtained. This point was reached in a trot of about 
three and three-quarter hours from Bir Um Disi. One 
looks down upon a great lake of sand, amidst which the 
groups of dark granite hills rise like a thousand islands, 
while dim ranges enclose the scene on all sides. From 
this huge basin a hundred valleys seem to radiate, and 
it would be an easy matter to head for the wrong peak 
and to lose oneself upon the undulating sands. De- 
scending a smooth slope, we rested for luncheon in the 





QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 261 


shade of a group of rocks; and presently mounting our 
camels again, we crossed the basin and entered a series 
of intricate valley, which became more and more nar- 
row and enclosed as the day wore on, giving us good 
reason to doubt whether our baggage camels would 
manage to follow. At last, in the late afternoon, after 
a ride of rather under four hours from the top of Wady 
Ghrosar, a turn in the path brought the town of Mons 
Claudianus suddenly into view and in a moment the 
camels were forgotten, and the wonderfully preserved 
remains had carried one back to the day of the Emper- 
ors Trajan and Hadrian. 

The hills of Um Etgal supplied Rome with a fine 
white granite speckled with black, which was deservedly 
popular for building purposes during the Imperial age. 
The stone was not employed by the ancient Egyptians, 
and it was left to a Roman prospector to discover its 
existence and to open the quarries. The settlement 
which was founded here was known generally as Mons 
Claudianus, but in honour of the Emperor Trajan the 
well which supplied it with water was called Fons Tra- 
janus, and this name was sometimes applied to the 
town. ‘The stone was transported from here to the 
Nile on waggons drawn by oxen or men, and was 
placed upon barges at Keneh. It was then floated 
down the stream to the sea, where it was trans-shipped 
to the galleys which bore it across the Mediterranean to 
the port of Rome. 

The distance from here to the Nile must be about 
a hundred miles; and, as will be seen, the blocks which 
were despatched from the quarries were of enormous 
size. It must have been an easier matter to transport 
the Imperial Porphyry from Gebel Dukhan to the 


262 TUTANKHAMEN 


river; for the objects executed in that stone were not 
usually of a size to require particularly large blocks. 
But the great pillars which were cut from the white 
granite were often of dimensions which one would 
have regarded as prohibitive to transportation. In 
order to reduce the weight to the minimum the columns 
were dressed on the spot to within an inch or so of their 
final surface, whereas the porphyry blocks were light 
enough to be sent down in the rough. ‘This is the 
explanation of the fact that at Gebel Dukhan there was 
but a small town, whereas here at Um Etgal the settle- 
ment was far more elaborate and extensive. Skilled 
masons had to live at Mons Claudianus as well as 
quarrymen, engineers as well as labourers; and the 
architects themselves may have had to visit the quarries 
on certain occasions. If one has admired the enter- 
prise which is displayed in the works at Gebel Dukhan, 
an even greater call on one’s admiration will be made at 
Um Etgal; and those who would fully appreciate the 
power of the Roman Empire should make their slow 
way to these distant quarries, should realise the enor- 
mous difficulties of their working, and should think for 
a moment that all this activity was set in motion by the 
mere whim of an emperor. 

The town, enclosed by a buttressed and fortified 
wall, stands in a valley between the rocky hills from 
which the white granite was quarried. A broad road 
leads up to the main entrance. On the left side of this 
stand various ruined houses, and on the right there is 
a large enclosure in which the transport animals were 
stabled. Over half this enclosure there was a roof, sup- 
ported by numerous pillars; but the other half stands 
open, and contains line upon line of perfectly preserved 


QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 263 


stalls, at which some 300 oxen or donkeys could be 
stabled. 

Farther up the road, on the opposite side, just be- 
fore reaching the entrance to the town, there stands the 
bath-house. One first enters a good-sized hall, in which 
three small granite tanks stand. Here the bathers no 
doubt washed themselves before entering the baths 
proper. From this silent hall two doorways open. The 
first of these leads into a series of three small rooms, 
which were heated by furnaces in the manner of a 
Turkish bath. These chambers seem to have been 
heated to different degrees, for under the floor of the 
innermost there is a large cavity or cellar for the hot 
air, whereas in the other rooms there are only pottery 
flues, which pass down the walls behind the plaster. In 
one chamber there is an arched recess, which seems to 
have been made for ornamental purposes. ‘The second 
doorway from the hall leads into a fine vaulted room, 
at the far end of which a plunge-bath, some nine feet 
long and four or five feet deep, is constructed of bricks 
and cement. Steps lead down into it from the floor 
level, and in the walls around there are ornamental 
niches in which statuettes or vases may have stood. In 
this tank the Roman officer was able to lie splashing 
after his hot-air bath, and there is an appearance of lux- 
ury about the place which suggests that he could here 
almost believe himself in his own country. 

The enclosed town consists of a crowded mass of 
small houses, intersected by a main street from which 
several lanes branch to right and left. The walls are 
built of broken stones, and the doorways are generally 
constructed of granite. Some of the roofing is still in- 
tact, and is formed of thin slabs of granite supported 


264 TUTANKHAMEN 


by rough pillars. One wanders from street to street, 
picking a way here and there over fallen walls; now 
entering the dark chambers of some almost perfectly 
preserved house, now pausing to look through a street 
doorway into the open court beyond. Large quantities 
of broken pottery and blue glazed ware lie about, but 
there did not seem to be many other antiquities on the 
surface. 

The temple lies outside the town on the hillside to 
the north. A flight of ruined steps, some 25 feet in 
breadth between the balustrades, leads up to a terrace 
on which stands the broken altar, inscribed as follows: 
“In the twelfth year of the Emperor Nerva Trajan 
Cesar Augustus Germanicus Dacicus; by Sulpicius 
Simius, Prefect of Egypt, this altar was made.” At 
the north end of the terrace there is a granite portico, 
of which the two elegant columns are now overthrown. 
Through this one passes into a large four-pillared hall, 
where there is another altar, upon which is written: 
“Annius Rufus; Legate of the X Vth Legion ‘Appoli- 
naris, superintending the marble works of Mons 
Claudianus by the favour of the Emperor Trajan.” 
From this hall the sanctuary and other important 
rooms lead. The walls in the various parts of the 
building now only appear as orderly piles of rough 
stones, but when they were neatly covered with the 
salmon-coloured plaster, which may be seen in the 
bath-house and elsewhere, they must have been most 
imposing. Built into one of the outer walls of the 
temple there is a block of stone decorated with the well 
known Egyptian symbol of the disk and serpents; and 
this seems to be the only indication of Egyptian in- 
fluence in the place. 





THE ROMAN TOWN OF MONS CLAUDIANUS, LOOKING SOUTH 
From the causeway leading to the main quarry. 





MONS CLAUDIANUS 


A large granite column lying to the north-east of the town. 
The back wall of the town is seen behind the column, above 
which the temple buildings are seen at the foot of the granite hills. 





QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 265 


To the north-east of the town a great causeway 
leads up to the main quarries, and half-way along it 
lies a huge block of granite, abandoned for some reason 
before it had been dragged down to the depository 
below. Here at the foot of the causeway lie several 
huge columns already trimmed, and many smaller 
blocks left in the rough. Most of these are numbered 
or otherwise marked, and on one enormous block hewn 
in the form of a capital, there is written: “The prop- 
erty of Cesar Nerva Trajan.” 

The well from which the inhabitants of Mons 
Claudianus drew their water lies in a valley nearly a 
mile from the town. It is enclosed within a courtyard, 
and near it stands a round tower some 25 feet in 
height. From this tower to a point about a quarter of 
a mile from the town there runs an aqueduct along 
which the water was evidently sent, the drop of 25 feet 
giving it the necessary impetus. At the town end of 
the aqueduct there is a building which contains a large 
tank and a series of rooms something in the nature of 
a small barrack. Here, no doubt, lived the persons who 
had charge of the water supply, and it was probably 
their duty to see that the tank was always full. Out- 
side the building there is a trough from which the ani- 
mals could drink. One imagines the quarrymen or their 
wives coming each day to the tank to fill their amphore 
with water, and the stablemen leading down the mules 
or donkeys to the trough. Here, as in the animal lines 
in the town, one is struck with the disciplined system 
shown in the arrangements, and it seems clear that the 
settlement was under the immediate eyes of true Ro- 
mans, uninfluenced by the slovenliness of the Orient. 

I first saw these ruins in the red light of sunset, and 


266 TUTANKHAMEN 


through the streets of the town I made my way in the 
silence of nightfall. No words can record the strange- 
ness of wandering thus through doorways unbarred 
since the days of Imperial Rome, and through houses 
uninhabited for so many hundreds of years. It is diffi- 
cult to describe the sensations which a scene of this kind 
arouses. At first the mind is filled with sheer amaze- 
ment, both at the freshness, the newness of the build- 
ings, and their similarity to those in use at the present 
day. One cannot bring oneself to believe that so many 
centuries have passed since human eyes looked daily 
upon them or hands touched them. But presently a 
door seems to open in the brain, a screen slides back, 
and clearly one sees Time in its true relation. A thou- 
sand years, two thousand years, have the value of the 
merest drop of water in an ocean. One’s hands may 
reach out and touch the hands which built these houses, 
fashioned these doorways, and planned these streets. 
This town is not a relic of an age of miracles, when the 
old gods walked the earth or sent their thunderbolts 
from an unremote heaven; but stone by stone it was 
constructed by men in every way identical with our- 
selves, whose brains have only known the sights and 
sounds which we know, altered in but a few details. 
The fact that those far-off days are so identical with 
those we live in does not, however, speak to the mind 
of the changelessness of things, of the constancy of hu- 
man customs. That is a minor thought. It tells rather 
of our misconception of the nature of Time; it shows 
how difficult it is to judge the ages by the standard of 
human experience. In looking at these almost un- 
harmed relics of a life which ceased before our re- 
motest English history had begun, one sees that their 


QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 267 


modern appearance is not so much due to the persistence 
of custom as it is to the shortness of time since the town 
was built. Two thousand years is not a period which 
we have the right to call long: it is but an hour in the 
duration of man’s existence upon earth. “A thousand 
ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone,” runs the 
old hymn; and one feels that the ages since this town 
was built must indeed be but an evening to One whose 
laws of Decay and Change have not found time in 
them to show more than a few signs of their working. 
As I entered the temple in the twilight, and aroused 
unaccustomed echoes in the silence of its halls, the 
thought was that I had come rudely to awaken the 
Past; and, as the son of a race that had outlived its 
miracles, to bring the tidings that the gods were dead. 
But when the newness, the freshness of parts of the 
buildings, had opened the doors of the mind, the 
thought was only that the gods were still living and 
mighty who could think so lightly of twenty long 
centuries. 

On the following morning I busied myself in taking 
notes and photographs amongst the ruins; and some- 
what before noon the camp was struck. The road, now 
leading westwards towards Keneh, passed for the main 
part of the ride along a wide valley of great beauty; 
and after trotting for about three and a half hours we 
passed a small ancient quarry of fine, small-grained, 
grey granite—like that of which the statue of Tut- 
ankhamen in the Cairo Museum is made—near which 
a few huts were grouped. Towards sunset we crossed 
the brow of a hill, and so descended into the Wady 
Fatireh, where we camped near the well of that name. 
Here there is a Roman station differing very slightly 


268 TUTANKHAMEN 


from those already described. It lies about five and a 
half hours’ trot from Mons Claudianus, and was thus 
the first night’s halting-place for express caravans on 
the road from that town to Keneh. 

As darkness fell, I was sitting in the fortress ques- 
tioning the guide as to the road, when we were both 
startled by the sound of falling stones, and looking up 
we saw a large dog-like creature disappearing over the 
wall. Examining the footprints afterwards, I saw 
them to be the heavy marks of a hyzena; but no more 
was heard of him. Hyeenas are by no means rare in the 
desert, though it is not usual to find them so far back 
from the Nile as this. In sleeping out in the desert 
travellers warn one to be careful, for a hyena, they 
say, might snap at a foot protruding from the blankets, 
just as a man might take a biscuit from the sideboard; 
but I do not recollect hearing of anybody who has ever 
been attacked. 

The ancient Egyptians used to eat hyzenas, and the 
scenes in the early tombs show them being fattened up 
in the farms. Men are seen flinging the unfortunate 
creatures on their backs, their legs being tied, while 
others force goose-flesh down their throats. Probably 
the archaic hunter in the desert ate hyena-flesh for 
want of other meat, and the custom took hold amongst 
the sporting families of dynastic times; for with proper 
feeding there is no reason to suppose that the meat 
would be objectionable. The old guide told me, as we 
sat in the darkness, that there are several trappers who 
make their living by snaring hyenas, and there is no 
part of the animal which has not a marketable value. 
The skin has its obvious uses; the skull is sold as a 
charm, and brings luck to any house under the threshold 


QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 269 


of which it is buried; the fat is roasted and eaten as a 
great delicacy; and the flesh is also used for eating, and 
for medical purposes, certain parts being stewed down 
and swallowed by women who desire to produce a fam- 
ily in spite of Nature’s unwillingness, 

In the neighbourhood of Fatireh we noticed several 
rough workings in the rocks, near which there were 
often a few ruined huts. These are the remains of an- 
cient gold mines, worked by the Egyptians and the 
Romans. There are said to be many old mines in this 
neighbourhood, and an attempt has been made in re- 
cent years to re-open them, though without much suc- 
cess. In an inscription of Dynasty XVIII (B.c. 1580- 
1350) one reads of “the gold of the desert behind 
Koptos,” which city was situated on the Nile a few 
miles south of Keneh; and although most of the Koptos 
metal was obtained from the region of Wady Fowak- 
hieh, of which the reader will have heard in a previous 
chapter, some of the gold may have been mined in the 
Fatireh neighbourhood at that date, as it certainly was 
in Roman times. The subject is one of such interest 
that I may be permitted to mention here something of 
the methods of working the gold employed by the 
ancients. 

A full account is given by Diodorus, who obtained 
his information from Agatharcides, of the mines which 
are situated in the Eastern Desert farther to the south; 
and, as the methods were no doubt similar in both dis- 
tricts, the information enables one to reconstruct the 
scenes upon which these hills of Fatireh looked down 
two thousand years ago. 

The persons who worked the mines were mainly 
criminals and prisoners of war; but with these there 


270 TUTANKHAMEN 


were many unjustly accused, men of good breeding, 
and those who had by some political action earned the 
Pharaoh’s or the emperor’s wrath. Frequently this 
class of prisoner was banished to the mines, together 
with all the members of his family, and these also were 
obliged to labour for the king’s profit. No distinctions 
were made at the mines between the classes, but all suf- 
fered together, and all were weighed down with fetters 
by night and by day. ‘There was little or no chance of 
escape, for sentries were posted on every hill-top, and 
the soldiers were ready to give chase through the wa- 
terless desert should a man elude the watchman. These 
soldiers were all of foreign extraction, and the chances 
were heavy against their understanding the speech of 
the prisoners; and thus they were seldom able to be 
bribed or introduced into a scheme of escape. 

The work was carried on day after day without ces- 
sation, and always the labourers were under the eye of 
a merciless overseer, who showered blows upon them at 
the slightest provocation. In order to keep down the 
expenses, no clothes were provided for the prisoners, 
and often they possessed not a rag to hide their naked- 
ness. Nor were they allowed to give a moment’s time 
to the bathing or care of their bodies. In good or in 
bad health they were forced to work; and neither the 
weakness of extreme age, nor the fever of sickness, nor 
the infirmities of women, were regarded as proper 
cause for the idleness of even an hour. All alike were 
obliged to labour, and were urged thereto by many 
blows. Thus the end of a man who had been banished 
to these mines was always the same: fettered and un- 
washed, covered with bruises and disfigured by pesti- 
lence, he dropped dead in his chains under the lash 


QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 271 


of the relentless whip. The sufferings of life were 
such that death was hailed with joy, and it was 
the dying alone who possessed a single thought of 
happiness. 

Those who have seen the old workings on the ex- 
posed face of the rocks, and have known the coldness 
of the winter nights and the intense heat of the sum- 
mer days, will alone realise what tortures these poor 
wretches must have suffered. One might well think 
that the wind which went moaning down the valley as 
we rode along the path to the Nile still carried the 
groans of the sufferers, and that the whispering rocks 
still echoed the cries of utter despair. Looking at 
the huts where these people lived and the mines where 
they laboured, one could not regard the record of their 
woe, which Diodorus makes known to us, as a tale of 
long ago. Two thousand years, one may repeat, is 
not really a period which we should regard as long; 
and while walls stand upright and mines gape open, 
the sound of lamentation will not be hushed in these 
valleys. 

The rock from which the gold was obtained, says 
Diodorus, was very hard; but the miners softened it 
by lighting fires under it, after which it could almost 
be broken with the hands. When it was thus prepared, 
thousands of prisoners were set to breaking it with 
iron tools, while the overseer directed their labours 
towards the veins of gold. To the strongest of the men 
iron picks were given, and with these, though wielded 
unskilfully and with great labour, they were made to 
attack the hillside. The galleries, following the veins, 
twisted and turned, so that at the depth of a few feet 
there was no glimmer of daylight; and for this reason 


272 TUTANKHAMEN 


the miners each carried a small lamp bound to their 
forehead. As the blocks of quartz were broken by the 
picks they were carried to the surface by children of 
the captives, who formed a constant procession up and 
down the dark galleries. These fragments were then 
gathered up by youths and placed in stone mortars, 
in which they were pounded with iron pestles until 
the ore was broken into pieces of the size of peas. ‘The 
ore was then handed over to women and old men, who 
placed it in hand-mills, and thus ground it to powder. 
The powder was then placed upon a sloping surface, 
and a stream of water was poured over it, which car- 
ried away the particles of stone but left the gold in 
position. This process of washing was repeated several 
times, until all foreign matter was eliminated, and the 
gold dust became pure and bright. Other workmen 
then took the dust, and, after measuring it carefully, 
they poured it into an earthenware crucible; and, 
having added a small quantity of lead, tin, salt, and 
bran, they closed the vessel with a tight-fitting lid, and 
placed it in a furnace for the space of five days. At 
the end of this time the crucible was set aside to cool, 
and on removing the lid it was found to contain gold 
ready to be despatched to the Treasury. 

To bear witness to the accuracy of this account one 
sometimes finds mortars and hand-mills lying amidst 
the ruins of the old mining settlements. At the mines 
of Um Garriat there are said to be thousands of these 
mills, and here at Fatireh not a few are to be found. 
Sluices for washing the crushed ore have been observed 
in some of the old workings and of the smelting cru- 
cibles remains exist at Um Garriat and elsewhere. 

Practically nothing is known of the methods em- 


QUARRIES OF MONS CLAUDIANUS 273 


ployed by the Egyptians in earlier days, but they 
cannot have differed very greatly from those of the 
Roman period. There seems reason to suppose that 
less cruelty existed in dynastic times than in the days 
of the callous Romans; and in the following chapter 
an account will be given of a temple, a well, and a 
town built by King Sety I for the benefit of persons 
who were engaged in gold-mining. 

The night spent at Fatireh was again bitterly cold, 
and a violent wind necessitated a tussle with tent-ropes 
and pegs: a form of exercise as annoying in the day- 
time as any that exists, and in the shivering night-time 
unspeakable. A couple of hours’ riding next day 
brought us to the end of the mountainous country and 
into the open desert. For the first time for several 
days the sun streamed down from a cloudless sky, but 
the strong north wind continued to blow in full force; 
and as we trotted over the level plains we were half- 
blinded by the stinging sand. The peaked hills behind 
us rose from a sea of tearing sand, and before us in 
the distance rose low, undulating clay mounds, beyond 
which one could catch a glimpse of the limestone cliffs 
so typical of the Nile valley. In the afternoon we 
crossed these mounds and descended into a very maze 
of hillocks, amidst which we camped. Amongst these 
mounds we met a couple of Bedouin, the purpose of 
whose presence was entirely obscure. Our guide ex- 
changed the usual greetings with them and then in a 
low voice began to talk of the miserable dog which 
trotted dejectedly behind his camel. Again he pointed 
to his almost empty bag of food, and at last dis- 
mounted, fastened a rope to the creature’s neck, and 
handed it to the Bedouin. The usual howls floated to 


274 TUTANKHAMEN 


us on the wind as we rode onwards, but the high spirits 
of the guide at his freedom from any further responsi- 
bility was a real pleasure to witness. 

Early in the following morning I visited the 
Roman station of Greiyeh, which lies some seven hours’ 
trot from Fatireh, and about six hours, or rather more, 
from Keneh, and was thus the first night’s halting-place 
out from the Nile, or the second from Mons Claudi- 
anus. The station is, as usual, a rectangular enclosure, 
in which several rooms are constructed. Particularly 
well preserved are the animal lines, which lie to the west 
of the station. They consist of a courtyard in which 
fourteen rows of stalls are built, while down either side 
there has been a shed with a roof supported by a row of 
pillars. Not far away is the ancient well, enclosed in a 
small compound. 

This is the last of the Roman stations, and having 
passed it, the ancient world seemed to slip back out of 
reach. The camels were set at a hard trot over the 
now flat and burning sand, and by noon the distant 
palms of Keneh were in sight floating above the mirage. 
As the houses of the town grew more and more distinct 
in the dazzling sunlight, the practical concerns of official 
work came hurrying to mind; and in times and trains, 
baggage and bustle, the quiet desert, with its ghosts of 
Rome, faded away as fades some wonderful dream when 
the sleeper awakes. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 


HE small shrine in the Eastern Desert, which 
I have here called the Temple of Wady Abad, 
is known to Egyptologists as the Temple of 
Redesiyeh, although it is thirty-seven miles or more 
from the village on the Nile, five miles above Edfu, 
which bears that name. Redesiyeh seems to have been 
the point from which Lepsius, the German arche- 
ologist, and other early explorers set out to visit the 
desert shrine; and hence the name of this wholly un- 
important village was given to the ruin, and nobody 
has bothered to find one more suitable. By the natives 
the building is called Hl Kaneis, “the chapel’; and 
since it is situated in the well-known Wady Abad, it 
would seem most natural to call it the “Chapel, or 
Temple, of Wady Abad.” Modern prospectors and 
mining’ engineers have been puzzled to know what 
Redesiyeh has to do with the place; and the fact that 
an old German antiquarian half a century ago collected 
his camels at that village being wholly without signifi- 
cance to them, they have regarded the word Redesiyeh 
as a probable corruption of Rhodesia, and have spoken, 
to the amazement and confusion of the uninitiate, of the 
Temple of Rhodesia in the hills of the Upper Egyptian 
Desert. 
The shrine was built by King Sety I (s.c. 1800), 


the father of Rameses the Great, for the benefit of the 
275 


276 TUTANKHAMEN 


miners passing to and from the various gold mines 
near the Red Sea; and the story one hears from the 
modern engineers, which vaguely relates that the 
temple was erected by King Ptolemy as a memorial 
to his son, who died at this spot on his return from 
the mines, does not require consideration. During the 
brilliant reign of Sety I, the gold mines were energeti- 
cally worked, and the produce of those upon the road 
to which this shrine was built was intended especially 
for the upkeep and ornamentation of the king’s great 
temple at Abydos, about 180 miles by river north of 
the Wady Abad. There are so many old gold-work- 
ings between the river and the Red Sea that one cannot 
say definitely where Sety’s miners were bound for who 
stopped to offer a prayer to the gods at this wayside 
shrine, but one may certainly say that Edfu, the old 
Apollinopolis Magna, and El Kab, the old Eileithyias- 
polis, were the cities from which they set out. It will, 
perhaps, be best to state that Edfu stands on the Nile, 
about half-way between Aswan and Luxor—1i.e., about 
520 miles above Cairo—and that El Kab is situated 
some 10 miles down-stream from Edfu. The Wady 
Abad enters the desert exactly opposite Edfu; the 
shrine stands about 35 miles east of that town; and the 
Red Sea coast is about 100 miles farther east as the 
crow flies. 

One year, towards the end of March, when the hot 
south winds were driving the tourists towards the sea, 
and the trains from Luxor to Cairo were full to over- 
flowing, I set out in the opposite direction, travelling 
southwards in an empty train as far as the little way- 
side station of Mahamid, the nearest stopping place to 
the ruins of El Kab. The camels which were to carry 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 277 


my party to Sety’s temple in the desert were awaiting 
us upon the platform, surrounded by an admiring 
throng of native loafers. The caravan, according to 
orders, which were ultimately carried out, was to con- 
sist of ten baggage and four riding camels, and an 
assortment of camel-men under the leadership of a 
Shékh; but more than double that number of camels 
lay grunting in the sunlight as the hot train panted 
into the station. This was due to the fact that a rival 
and more wealthy camel proprietor, who had not been 
invited to do business on this occasion, had sent a few 
camels to the rendezvous, on the chance of their being 
required, and this move the chosen proprietor met by 
doubling the number of his camels. The disappointed 
owner was himself at the station, and eloquently 
dilated upon the danger of entrusting oneself to a 
Shékh of inferior standing. In the infallible “Be- 
deker,” one reads that for this journey it is necessary 
“to secure the protection of the Shékh of the Ababdeh 
tribes”; and though the edition in which these ominous 
words appear is a few years out of date, one realised 
in what a dilemma a traveller who did not know the 
country might have found himself. ‘The Shékh, it 
appeared, had even telegraphed his warning to me at 
the last moment; but this having been really the last 
of a short series of cards which it seems that he had 
played, it did not require many words to soothe mat- 
ters into the normal condition of hullabaloo which 
everywhere prevails in Egypt at the departure of a 
caravan. 

The baggage at last being despatched southwards, 
we set out towards the ruins of El Kab, which could be 
seen shimmering in the heat haze a few miles away. It 


278 TUTANKHAMEN 


was our purpose to ride to Kdfu, thence into the desert, 
and thence back to Edfu and on to Aswan. ‘The first 
night was to be spent under the ruined walls of the 
ancient city of Kileithyiaspolis, and it did not take long 
to trot to the camping-ground by the river-side. Here, 
in explanation of the route which we followed, I must 
be permitted to enter into some archeological details 
in connection with EK] Kab and Edfu. 

In archaic days, when the great Hawk-chieftains 
who glimmer, like pale stars, at the dawn of history, 
were consolidating their power in Upper Egypt before 
conquering the whole Nile valley, there stood a city 
on the west bank of the river, opposite El Kab, which 
in later times was known as Hieraconpolis, “the City 
of the Hawks.” This was the earliest capital of Upper 
Egypt, and here it is probable that the great king 
Mena, “the Fighter,” the first Pharaoh of a united 
Egypt, was born and bred. This king and his father 
conquered the whole of Egypt, and for that conquest 
a certain amount of wealth was necessary, even in 
those days when might was as good as money. For 
this purpose, and for the reason that the arts of civili- 
sation were already in practice, the gold mines of the 
Eastern Desert began to be worked. ‘This industry 
led to the establishment of a station on the east bank 
of the river opposite the capital, where the miners 
might foregather, and where the caravans and their 
escort of soldiers might be collected. 

As larger deeds and wider actions became the order 
of the Pharaoh’s day, so the mines were extended and 
the number of workmen increased; and it was not long 
before the station at El Kab grew into a city almost as 
large as the metropolis. In Dynasty XII (B.c. 2000) 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 279 


a wall was built around it, which stands to this day, 
in order to protect it from incursions from the desert. 
Gradually great temples were erected here, and the 
city, known as Nekheb, and later as Hileithyiaspolis, 
was one of the busiest centres in Egypt. 

The ruins of the old caravanserai are of wonderful 
interest. One may pass through the narrow doorway 
of the fortified enclosure, and in the silent area where 
once the soldiers and miners camped, and where now 
a few goats graze, one feels completely shut off from 
the world of the present day. The dark walls rise 
almost to their full height, and one may still ascend 
and descend the sloping ramps where the sentries 
paced in the olden days. Here there are the ruins of 
the temple where the vulture-goddess was worshipped ; 
and yonder one sees mounds of potsherds, bricks, corn- 
grinders, and all the debris of a forsaken town. In the 
side of a hill which overlooks the great ramparts there 
is the long row of tombs in which the princes of the 
district were buried; and here in the biographical in- 
scriptions on the walls one reads of many a feat of 
arms and many a brave adventure. 

The hills of the desert recede in a kind of bay, and 
walking eastwards from the town, one presently sees 
that there is at the back of the bay, an outlet through 
the range, five miles or so from the river and the en- 
closure. It was through this natural gateway, which 
the ancient Egyptians called “the Mouth of the Wil- 
derness,” that the caravans passed in early days into 
the great desert; and once through this doorway they 
were immediately shut off from the green Nile valley 
and all its busy life. There is a great isolated rock, 
which stands in the bay, and in its shadow the miners 


280 TUTANKHAMEN 


‘and soldiers were wont to offer their last prayers to the 
gods of Egypt, often inscribing their names upon the 
smooth surface of the stone. Here one reads of priests, 
scribes, caravan-conductors, soldiers, superintendents 
of the gold mines, and all manner of officials, who were 
making the desert journey, or who had come to see its 
starting-point. 

In Dynasty XVIII, Amenhotep III (B.c. 1400) 
erected a graceful little temple here, to which one may 
walk or ride out from El Kabo over the level, gravel- 
covered surface of the desert, and may stand amazed 
at the freshness of the colouring of the paintings on its 
wall. Another little shrine was built, close by, a 
century and a half later; and in Ptolemaic times a third 
temple was constructed. Thus the traveller is sur- 
rounded by shrines as he sets out over the hills away 
from this land of shrines; it is as though the gods were 
loath to leave him and in solemn company came out to 
speed him on his way. 

The road which the gold miners trod passed 
through the hills, and then turned off towards the 
south-east; and presently it met the road which started 
from Edfu, or rather, from Contra Apollinopolis 
Magna, which, as has been said, is ten miles distant from 
Hl] Kab. Edfu was also a city of great antiquity, and 
was famous as the place where at the dawn of Egyp- 
tian history the Hawk-tribes overthrew the worship- 
pers of Set, the god who afterwards degenerated into 
Satan. The great temple which now stands there, and 
which is the delight of thousands of visitors each winter, 
was built upon the ruins of earlier temples, where the 
hawks of Edfu had been worshipped since the begin- 
ning of things. The record of a tax levied on Edfu in 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 281 


the reign of Thutmose III (8.c. 1500) shows that it 
was mainly paid in solid gold, instead of in kind; and 
one thus sees that the precious metal was coming into 
the country at that time along the Wady Abéad route, 
as indeed it was along all the great routes. Edfu was 
the main starting-point for the mines in the days when 
Sety I built his temple, if we may judge from the fact 
that the hawk-god of that city is one of the chief deities 
worshipped in the shrine, while the vulture-goddess of 
El Kab has only a secondary place there; and in 
Roman times the Edfu road was perhaps the only one 
in general use. 

This was the route which was selected for our jour- 
ney; and after spending the night at El Kab, we rode 
next morning along the east bank of the river to a point 
at the mouth of the Wady Abad, opposite the pictur- 
esque town of Edfu, where the pylons shoot up to the 
blue sky and dominate the cluster of brown houses and 
green trees. A morning swim in the river, and a trot 
of somewhat over two hours, was sufficient exercise for 
the first day; and the afternoon was spent in camp, 
while the camel-men collected the food for the journey 
and led their beasts down to the river to drink. 

On the following morning, soon after daybreak, we 
mounted our camels and set out over the hard sand 
and gravel towards the sunrise. A fresh, cool wind 
blew from the north, and the larks were already sing- 
ing their first songs, as we trotted up the wady. The 
brisk morning air, the willing camels, the setting out 
into the freedom of the desert—how shall I record the 
charm of it? Only those who have travelled in the 
desert can understand the joy of returning there; a 
joy which, strangely enough, has only one equal, and 


282 TUTANKHAMEN 


that, the pleasure of returning to water, to flowers, and 
to trees after a spell of some days or weeks in the wil- 
derness. Here there are no cares, for there are no posts 
nor newspapers; here there is no fretfulness, for one 
is taking almost continual exercise; here there is no 
irritation, for society, the arch-irritant, is absent; here 
there is no debility and fag, for one is drinking in re- 
newed strength from the strong conditions around. 
But ever enthusiasm, that splendid jewel in the ring 
of life, shines and glitters before one’s eyes; and all 
one’s actions assume a broader and a happier com- 
plexion. The desert is the breathing-space of the 
world, and therein one truly breathes and lives. 

A trot of about two hours brought us to a well, 
known as Bir Abad. The well is but a small, stagnant 
pool of brackish water, around which a few trees grow. 
There are six acacias, three or four small palms, a cu- 
rious dead-looking tree, called Herdz by the natives, 
and a few desert shrubs. Some attempt has been 
made to cultivate a small area, but this has not met 
with success, and the native farmers have departed. 
The sand under the acacias offers a welcome resting- 
place, and here in the shade we sat for a while, listening 
to the quiet shuffle of the wind amongst the trees and 
to the singing of the sand-martins. While playing idly 
with the sand, an objectionable insect was uncovered, 
which the natives call a “ground-gazelle.” It is a fat, 
maggot-like, beastly creature, about an inch in length, 
possessing a pair of nippers similar to those of an ear- 
wig. It runs fast upon its six or eight legs, but when- 
ever possible it buries itself by wriggling backwards 
into the sand. A more loathesome insect could not well 
be imagined; and, since the species is said to be by 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 283 


no means uncommon, I shall not delve with my fingers 
so readily in the future when I chance to be lying in 
the shadow of desert trees. 

A ride of about half-an-hour’s duration along the 
valley and past a Shékh’s tomb, known as Abu Gehad, 
brought us to the ruined Roman fortified station 
named after this tomb. It is much like other stations 
of this date, and consists of an enclosure in which a 
few chambers are to be seen. One enters from the 
west, and in the open area forming the courtyard there 
is a cemented tank in which a supply of water was 
stored for the use of travellers. ‘The south wall of the 
enclosure to this day looks formidable from the out- 
side, still standing some twelve feet in height, and be- 
ing solidly built of broken stones. On this side of the 
station there are traces of an outbuilding, which may 
have been the animal lines.. In the main enclosure a 
block of sandstone was found, bearing the cartouches 
of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen (8.c. 13850), and by its 
form it seems to have been part of a shrine which per- 
haps had stood at this spot. The road from El] Kab 
here joins the Edfu route, and the Pharaoh may have 
marked the meeting of the ways by a little wayside 
temple at which the gold miners might offer a prayer 
to the gods of the wilderness. Some of the gold which 
has been found in his tomb, no doubt came along this 
road from the mines. 

In Roman days, when this station was built, it is 
probable that the gold mines no longer formed the main 
objective of the caravans which passed along this road. 
Emeralds, almost unknown to the ancient Egyptians, 
were now deemed an ornamentation of worth and 
beauty; and the emerald mines of Gebel Zabara, which 


284 TUTANKHAMEN 


are most easily approached along this route, were vig- 
orously worked by the Romans. It was on his way to 
these mines that Cailliaud, in 1816, discovered the Tem- 
ple of Sety I. There was also a road from Edfu to the 
Greco-Roman port of Berenice on the Red Sea, which 
was much used at this period; and stations similar to 
that of Abu Gehad are to be met with at fairly regular 
intervals for the whole distance to the coast. 

Trotting on for another two hours and a quarter, 
we camped under the rocks of Gebel Timsah, a well- 
known landmark to the Bedouin. A head of rock pro- 
jects into the level valley, and upon it the people of 
the desert for untold generations have set up small 
heaps of stones, the original idea of which must have 
been connected with religious worship. ‘The two tents 
were no sooner pitched than a gale of wind, suddenly 
rising, tore one of them down, and almost succeeded in 
overthrowing the other. A tempest of dust and sand 
beat in at the doorway, and covered all things with a 
brown layer, so that one knew not where to turn nor 
how to escape. Fortunately, however, like all things 
violent, it did not last for long, and a calm, starlit night 
followed. 

The distance from Gebel Timsah to the temple 
which was our destination may be covered in about an 
hour and a half of trotting. We set out soon after sun- 
rise; and presently a low ridge was crossed, the path 
passing between two piles or beacons of stones, set up 
perhaps in Roman days to mark the road; and from this 
point a wide, flat valley could be seen, stretching be- 
tween the low hills, and much overgrown with bushes 
and brambles. Over the plain we jogged in the cool 
morning air, directing the camels to a high bluff of rock 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 285 


in the east, in which, the guide told us, the temple of 
Sety was excavated. Soon a Roman fortress came into 
sight, and later we were able to discern the portico of 
the temple sheltering under the rocks. Slowly the 
features became more distinct, and at last we dismounted 
at the foot of the cliffs and scrambled up the slope to 
explore the picturesque shrine. 

It is strange that of the many Egyptologists who 
have travelled in Egypt, only two—Lepsius and Gol- 
enischeff—have visited this spot. It may be that the 
statement of the old Bedeker, which says that the wan- 
dering Ababdeh tribes “assume a hostile attitude” to 
travellers, has confined them to the banks of the Nile; 
or perhaps the reported antics of the much-maligned 
camel have induced them to leave unvisited this pearl of 
the past. For that matter, however, the place might be 
reached upon the back of the patient ass, there being 
water at Bir Abad, and for the last few years, at the 
temple itself. When one sees this building, among the 
best preserved of all the Egyptian temples, one is 
amazed at the lack of enterprise which has caused it to 
be uncared for, unprotected, and unvisited for all these 
years. A few mining engineers and prospectors alone 
have seen the shrine; and, since they have disfigured its 
walls with their names, one could wish that they too had 
stayed at home. 

The little temple consists of a rectangular hall ex- 
cavated in the rock, the roof being supposed to be 
supported by four square pillars, though in reality these 
also are part of the living rock. At the far end there 
are three shrines in which the statues of the gods are 
carved. In front of this hall there is a built portico, the 
roof of which rests upon four columns with lotus-bud 


286 TUTANKHAMEN 


capitals. One enters from the north, up the slope of 
fallen stones and driven sand, and so passes into the 
shade of the portico. Through a hole in the roof, where 
a slab of stone has fallen in, one may look up at the 
towering rocks which overhang the building. Then, 
through a beautifully ornamented doorway, one passes 
into the dimness of the rock-cut hall, where there is a 
consciousness that the whole height of the hills rests 
above one’s head. Both this hall and the portico are 
richly decorated with coloured reliefs, and in the inner 
portion of the temple the visitor will stand in wonder 
at the brightness of the colours in the scenes which are 
seen on all sides. It has been said that the brilliancy 
of the painting in the temple of Amenhotep ITI, at El 
Kab, is surprising; but here it is still fresher, and has 
even more admirably held its own against the assaults 
of time. We see the Pharaoh smiting down his negro 
and Asiatic enemies in the presence of Amon-Ra and 
Horus of Edfu; we watch him as he makes offerings to 
the gods; and to the ceiling the eye is attracted by the 
great vultures with spread wings which there hover, 
depicted in radiant colours rendered more radiant by 
contrast with the browns and yellows of the scenery 
outside. In the niches at the end of the hall the gods 
sit in serenity ; and though these figures have been dam- 
aged almost beyond recognition by pious Moslems, 
there still clings around them their old majesty, and 
still something solemn may be found in their attitude, 
so that the visitor almost pays heed to the warning in- 
scribed on the doorway, that a man must be twice 
purified before entering the little sanctuary where they 
sit. 

It may be asked why Sety selected this spot for his 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 287 


temple, for except that it lies on the route to the mines, 
the reason for its location is not at once apparent. ‘The 
explanation, however, is not far to seek. This great 
bluff of rock has a smooth cliff-like surface on its north 
side, and for the earliest travellers, as for those of the 
present day, it has cast a welcome shadow in which one 
might take the mid-day siesta in comfort. Here, 
scratched or chiselled on the rock, there are many draw- 
ings which undoubtedly date from archaic, and even 
prehistoric times. Numerous representations of curi- 
ous boats are seen, and their character justifies one in 
supposing them to be the sacred arks which formed in 
ancient times such an essential part of Kgyptian reli- 
gious ceremonial. In most of these vessels there is the 
shrine which contained the god, and in one drawing a 
figure with flail raised, before which an animal is being 
sacrificed, is certainly the god Min himself, the patron 
of the desert. A few animals and figures are also 
drawn, and when human beings are represented in or 
near the arks, their arms are shown held aloft in the 
regular Egyptian attitude of worship. 

Thus it seems that, from being a place to rest and 
to dream in, the rock had already in archaic times be- 
come a sacred spot, at which early man bowed himself 
down before the representations of the ark of Min. 
From this period until Dynasty X VIII, it seems, from 
the lack of inscriptions here, that the mines were not 
much used. Amenhotep III, however, sent his Vice- 
roy of the South out here, whose name, Merimes, is 
written upon the rocks near the temple; and his temple 
at El Kab, at the beginning of the route, is further 
indication of his interest in the gold-workings. Just as 
this king had built his temple near the sacred rock at 


288 TUTANKHAMEN 


“the Mouth of the Wilderness,” so Sety I, following 
half a century later, decided to erect his shrine at the 
foot of this more distant sacred rock, the half distance 
having already been adventured by the intermediate 
Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Since the place was just about 
a day’s express ride from Edfu to El Kab, its situation 
was convenient; and, moreover, there was no other head 
of rock in the neighbourhood which offered so fine a 
position for a rock temple. 

In the inscriptions near the mouth of the excavated 
portions of the shrine, Sety caused to be recorded the 
story of the building of the temple; and parts of this 
are of sufficient interest to be quoted here:— 

“In the year 9 (B.c. 1304), the third month of the 
third season, the twentieth day.* Lo! his majesty 
inspected the hill-country as far as the region of the 
mountains, for his heart desired to see the mines from 
which the gold is brought. Now, when his majesty 
had. gone out from the Nile valley, he made a halt on 
the road, in order to take counsel with his heart; and he 
said, ‘How evil is the way without water! It is so 
for a traveller whose mouth is parched. How shall his 
throat be cooled, how shall he quench his thirst? For 
the lowland is far away, and the highland is vast. The 
thirsty man cries out to himself against a fatal country. 
Make haste! let me take counsel of their needs. I 
will make for them a supply for preserving them alive, 
so that they will thank God in my name in after years.’ 
Now, after his majesty had spoken these words in his 
own heart, he coursed through the desert, seeking a 
place to make a water-station; and lo! the god led him 


oe corresponded to the middle of April, when the weather is grow- 
ing hot. 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 289 


in order to grant the request which he desired. Then 
were commanded quarrymen to dig a well upon the 
desert, that he might sustain the fainting, and cool for 
him the burning heat of summer. Then this place was 
built in the great name of Sety, and the water flowed 
into it in very great plenty. Said his majesty, ‘Behold, 
the god has granted my petition, and he has brought to 
me water upon the desert. Since the days of the gods 
the way has been dangerous, but it has been made 
pleasant in my glorious reign. Another good thought 
has come into my heart, at the command of the god, 
even the equipment of a town, in whose midst shall be 
a settlement with a temple. I will build a resting-place 
on this spot in the great name of my fathers, the gods. 
May they grant that what I have wrought shall abide, 
and that my memory shall prosper, circulating through 
the hill-country.’ 

“Then his majesty commanded that the leader of 
the king’s workmen be commissioned, and with him the 
quarrymen, that there should be made, by excavation 
in the mountain, this temple. Now, after the strong- 
hold was completed and adorned, and its paintings 
executed, his majesty came to worship his fathers, all 
the gods; and he said, “Praise to you, O great gods! 
May ye favour me for ever, may ye establish my name 
eternally. As I have been useful to you, as I have 
been watchful for the things which ye desire, may ye 
speak to those who are still to come, whether kings, 
princes, or people, that they may establish for me my 
work in this place, on behalf of my beautiful temple in 
Abydos.’ ” 

The last words tell us for what purpose this route 
to the gold mines had been bettered. A second long 


290 TUTANKHAMEN 


inscription is devoted to blessings on those who keep 
up this shrine and the mines with which it was con- 
nected, and to curses on those who allow it to fall into 
neglect. A third inscription is supposed to give the 
speech of the travellers who have benefited by the 
king’s thoughtfulness :— 

“Never was the like of it (the temple and the well) 
made by any king, save by the King Sety, the good 
shepherd, who preserves his soldiers alive, the father 
and mother of all. Men say from mouth to mouth, ‘O, 
Amon, give to him eternity, double to him everiasting- 
ness; for he has opened for_us the road to march on, 
when it was closed before us. We proceed and are 
safe, we arrive and are preserved alive. The difficult 
way which is in our memory has become a good way. 
He has caused the mining of the gold to be easy. He 
hath dug for water in the desert far from men for the 
supply of every traveller who traverses the highlands.’ ” 

Sety dedicated his temple to Amon-Ra, whom he 
identified with Min, the old god of the place, and to 
Harmachis, the sun-god, whom he seems to have iden- 
tified with the hawk, Horus of Edfu. He also here 
worshipped Ptah, the Egyptian Vulcan, and his lion- 
headed consort, Sekhmet; Tum; Hathor, the Egyp- 
tian Venus; Nekheb, the vulture-goddess of El Kab; 
Osiris and Isis; Mut, the mother goddess; and Khonsu, 
the moon-god, who was the son of Amon-Ra and Mut, 
and with them formed the royal trinity at Thebes. All 
these gods one sees upon the walls of the temple, and 
before them Sety is shown offering incense, wine, flow- 
ers and food. Some inscriptions on the rocks near the 
temple, written by high officials of this period who 
visited the mines, make mention of two other deities: 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 291 


Ra, the sun-god, and a strange goddess who rides a 
horse and brandishes a shield and spear. 

When Sety died the temple was still not quite fin- 
ished, and for some reason or other which we shall 
probably never know, it so remained. His temple at 
Abydos, too, was neglected, and the revenues ceased to 
be collected. Thus, in spite of the curses inscribed on 
the walls of the desert shrine, the king’s plans for the 
continual working of the mines, in order to pay for the 
maintenance of his great masterpiece, were not carried 
out. At Abydos, Rameses II, in an inscription written 
a few years later, states that he found the temple of 
Sety there unfinished, and that it had not been ‘“com- 
pleted according to the regulations for it of the gold- 
house.” He, however, finished the building, and per- 
haps re-established the gold-workings along the Wady 
Abad route, for on one of the pillars of the hall of the 
desert shrine there is an inscription written by an offi- 
cial, which reads: “Bringing the gold for the festival 
in the temple of Rameses ITI.” 

Since that time until the present day the gods in the 
sanctuary have looked out at a long stream of travel- 
lers, soldiers, miners, and officials. Upon the rocks 
and on the walls of the temple there are several hiero- 
glyphic and Greek inscriptions which tell of the com- 
ing of all manner of people. A chief of the custodians 
of El Kab here records his name, and a scribe of the 
king’s troops is immortalised near by. Many of the 
Greek inscriptions are ea-votos dedicated to Pan, with 
whom the old Min had been identified; and as the 
latter was the god of desert travel, so the sprightly Pan 
becomes the sober patron of the roads. Miners from 
Syracuse and from Crete tell of their advent; and one 


292 TUTANKHAMEN 


traveller describes himself as an Indian, a voyager, 
perhaps, in one of the trading vessels which brought 
to the port of Berenice the riches of the East, to be 
conveyed across this great desert to the markets of 
Alexandria. A man named Dorion states that he had 
returned in safety from an elephant hunt, probably in 
the south. Two inscriptions are written by Jews, thank- 
ing God for their safe journeys; and it is interesting to 
note that one of them is called Theodotus, son of 
Dorion, and the other Ptolemy, son of Dionysius—all 
pagan names. A troop of Greek soldiers have recorded 
their names in the temple, and state that they kept a 
watch before “Pan of the Good Roads.” 

These travellers, besides, or instead of, writing their 
names, seem often to have piled a few stones at con- 
spicuous points as a memorial of their passage. At 
various places in the neighbourhood, and especially at 
the foot of the hills opposite the temple, there are many 
such piles of stones; and when well built they rise from 
the rocks like altars, three feet or so in height, and per- 
haps two feet in diameter. In one or two cases there 
are fragments of Egyptian pottery lying beside them, 
and there seems no question that they are connected 
with religious worship. 'The same custom still prevails 
amongst the desert people, though now its significance 
is not remembered; and yet its meaning is not entirely 
forgotten, for on a hill-top near the temple we found, 
near such a pile of stones, three pairs of gazelle horns 
and a collection of Red Sea shells, pierced for stringing, 
a modern offering to the old gods. 

In Greco-Roman times, a large fortified station was 
constructed near the temple, and this still stands in 
fairly good preservation. It is built in the plain, in 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 293 


front of the temple, not more than a hundred yards 
from the foot of the cliffs. The enclosure is somewhat 
larger than is usual in these stations, but the greater 
part of the area has never been built upon. The enclos- 
ing wall still stands to a height of ten feet or so in parts, 
but here and there it is almost entirely ruined. It is 
built in three thicknesses, so that on the inside there 
are two heights at which one might walk around the 
rampart without showing above it. One enters through 
a well-built masonry doorway, and on either side one 
may see the hole into which the beam was shot to close 
the wooden door at nights. On one’s right there is a 
group of small chambers; and here an isolated house, in 
one wall of which a window is still intact, forms the best 
preserved portion of the ruin. On one’s left there is a 
large hall, in which there was a tank, parts of which, 
now half choked with sand, can be seen. The next 
building on one’s left is also a hall of considerable size— 
the common mess-room, probably, of the travellers. 
One then passes into the open courtyard, which bears 
off to the left, or north, and does not contain more than 
a trace or so of walls. 

Although there are so many of these Roman stations 
in the Kastern Desert, their charm and interest never 
palls; and more than any other ancient buildings, they 
bring back the lost ages and recall the forgotten activi- 
ties of the old world. These ruins, too, are always pic- 
turesque, and gather to themselves at dawn and at sun- 
set the hues, the lights, and the shadows of the fairest 
fancy. At dawn, at noon, at sunset—all day long— 
this fortress in the Wady Abad is beautiful; and for 
those who love the desert there is here and in its sur- 
roundings always some new thing to charm. The walls 


294 TUTANKHAMEN 


of the enclosure, and beyond them the pillared portico 
of the temple sheltering under the rugged brown cliffs, 
form as delightful a picture as may be found in Egypt. 
As the traveller sits in the blue shadow, he may watch 
the black-and-white stone-chats fluttering from rock to 
rock, and overhead there circles a vulture, as vividly 
coloured as those which form the ceiling decoration of 
the temple. The wide, flat plain, shut in by the distant 
hills on all sides, entices him from the fortress on to its 
sparkling surface, though the tumbled rocks near the 
temple soon call him back to their breezy humps and 
shady nooks. The hundred surrounding hill-tops vie 
with one another in the advertisement of their merits, 
and he attains a summit but to covet a further prospect. 
Or attracted by the two or three trees and the few 
bushes which grow in the plain over against the fortress, 
he walks to their welcoming shade; and there he may 
listen to the song of the sand-martins and to the strange, 
long-drawn note of the finches. 


‘““A book of verses underneath the bough . . .” 


One knows now what the old philosopher desired to ex- 
press; for the wilderness is indeed a sort of Paradise, 
and here one may find the true happiness. 

The day slips past in a half-dream of pleasure; and 
to the student of archeology, who finds so much for his 
pencil to record and his mind to consider, the hours race 
by at an absurd speed. The two days which we spent 
here passed like an afternoon’s dream, and the memories 
which remain in the mind are almost too slight to record. 
Writing here in my study, I reconstruct the rugged 
scene, and search for the incidents which gave gentle 


THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABAD 295 


colour to it. There was a flight of cranes, which sailed 
overhead, moving from south-east to north-west, on their 
way to spend the summer in Europe. Why should my 
memory recall so charmedly the passage of a hundred 
birds? There was a hyena which, in the red dusk, stood 
upon a hill-top to watch us and presently disappeared. 
There were three vultures which rose from the bones of 
a dead camel, soared into the sky, and alighted again 
when we had passed. There came a flock of goats and 
sheep at noonday to the well, with much bleating and 
with the gentle patter of many hoofs. The shepherd in 
his picturesque rags eyed us curiously as his charges 
drank, and still watching us, passed down the wady 
towards the west when they had quenched their thirst. 
And so my memory wanders over the two days, recall- 
ing the trivialities, and passing over the more precise 
details of camp life and of work, until presently the 
tents are struck and the baggage goes bumping down 
the valley once more, on the backs of the grunting 
camels. The return journey to Edfu was soon accom- 
plished, and the accumulated mail of five or six days 
which was in waiting at the end of the ride, quickly. 
brought me back to the business of life, and relegated 
the Wady Abad to the store-chamber of happy recol- 
lections. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 


HE country of Lower Nubia lies between the 
First and Second Cataracts of the Nile. The 


town of Aswan, once famous as the frontier 
outpost of Egypt, and now renowned as a winter resort 
for Europeans and Americans, stands some two or three 
miles below the First Cataract; and two hundred miles 
southwards, at the foot of the Second Cataract, stands 
Wady Halfa. About half-way between these two points 
the little town of Derr nestles amidst its palms; and here 
the single police-station of the province is situated. 
Agriculturally the land is extremely barren, for the 
merest strip of cultivation borders the river, and in many 
reaches the desert comes down to the water’s edge. The 
scenery is rugged and often magnificent. As one sails 
up the Nile, the rocky hills on either side group them- 
selves into bold compositions, rising darkly above the 
palms and acacias reflected in the water. The villages, 
clustered on the hillside as though grown lke mush- 
rooms in the night, are not different in colour from the 
ground upon which they are built; but here and there 
neatly whitewashed houses of considerable size are to 
be observed. Now we come upon a tract of desert sand, 
which rolls down to the river in a golden slope; now the 
hills recede, leaving an open bay wherein there are 
patches of cultivated ground reclaimed from the wilder- 


ness; and now a dense but narrow palm-grove follows 
296 


THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 297 


the line of the bank for a mile or more, backed by the 
villages at the foot of the hills. 

The inhabitants are few in number. Most of the 
males have taken service as cooks, butlers, waiters and 
bottle-washers in European houses or hotels through- 
out Egypt; and consequently one sees more women than 
men pottering about the villages or working in the 
fields. They are a fine race, clean in their habits and 
cheery in their character. They can be distinguished 
with ease from the Egyptian fellahin, for their skin has 
more the appearance of bronze, and their features are 
often more aquiline. The women do not wear the veil, 
and their dresses are draped over one shoulder in a 
manner unknown to Egypt. The method of dressing 
the hair, moreover, is quite distinctive: the women plait 
it in innumerable little strands, those along the fore- 
head terminating in bead-like lumps of beeswax. The 
little children go nude for the first six or eight years of 
their life, though the girls sometimes wear around their 
waist a fringe made of thin strips of hide. The men 
still carry spears in some parts of the country, and a 
light battle-axe is not an uncommon weapon. 

There is no railway between Aswan and Halfa, all 
traffic being conducted on the river. Almost continu- 
ously a stream of native troops and English officers 
passes up and down the Nile, bound for Khartam or 
Cairo; and in the winter the tourists on steamers and 
dahabiyehs travel through the country in considerable 
numbers, to visit the many temples which were here 
erected in the days when the land was richer than it is 
now. 

The three most famous ruins of Lower Nubia are 
those of Phile, just above Aswan; Kalabsheh, some 


298 TUTANKHAMEN 


forty miles to the south; and Abu Simbel, about thirty 
miles below Halfa; but beside these there are many 
buildings of importance and interest. The ancient re- 
mains date from all periods of Egyptian history; for 
Lower Nubia played an important part in Pharaonic 
affairs, both by reason of its position as a buffer state 
between Egypt and the Sudan, and also because of its 
gold mining industry. In old days it was divided into 
several tribal states, these being governed by the Egyp- 
tian Viceroy of Ethiopia, but the country seldom re- 
volted or gave trouble, and to the present day it retains 
its reputation for peacefulness and orderly behaviour. 

Owing to the building, and later, the heightening, of 
the great Nile dam at Aswan, erected for the purpose 
of regulating the flow of water by holding back in the 
plenteous autumn and winter the amount necessary to 
keep up the level in the dry summer months, the whole 
of the valley from the First Cataract to the neighbour- 
hood of Derr has been turned into a vast reservoir, and 
a large number of temples and other ruins are flooded. 
Before the dam was finished the temples on the island 
of Phile were strengthened and repaired so as to be 
safe from damage by the water; and before the heighten- 
ing was carried out, every other ruin whose foundations 
were below the high-water level was repaired and safe- 
guarded. 

In 1906 and 1907, I went into the threatened terri- 
tory, to make a full report on the condition of the monu- 
ments there; * and on my recommendation, a very large 
sum of money was then voted for the work. Sir Gaston 
Maspero took the matter up in the spirit which is as- 


* Weigall: 4 Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia (Department 
of Antiquities, Cairo, 1907). 


THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 299 


sociated with his name; Monsieur Barsanti was sent 
to repair and underpin the temples; French, German 
and English scholars were engaged to make copies of 
the endangered inscriptions and reliefs; and Dr. 
Reisner, Mr. C. Firth, and others, under the nominal 
direction of Captain Lyons, were entrusted with the 
complete and exhaustive excavation of all the cemeteries 
and remains between the dam and the southern ex- 
tremity of the reservoir. As a result of this work, 
practically no information of any kind was lost by the 
flooding of the country. 

As was to be expected, the building and heightening 
of the dam caused consternation amongst the arche- 
ologically interested visitors to Egypt, and very con- 
siderably troubled the Egyptologists. Phile, one of 
the most picturesque ruins on the Nile, was to be de- 
stroyed, said the more hysterical, and numerous other 
buildings were to meet with the same fate. A very great 
deal of nonsense was written as to the vandalism of the 
English; and the minds of certain people were so much 
inflamed by the controversy, that many regrettable 
words were spoken. The Department of Antiquities 
was much criticised for having approved the scheme, 
though it was more generally declared that the wishes 
of that Department had not been consulted, which was 
wholly untrue. These strictures are pronounced on 
all sides at the present day, in spite of the very signifi- 
cant silence and imperturbation of Egyptologists, and 
it may therefore be as well to put the matter plainly 
before the reader, since the opinion of the person who 
for several years was in charge of the ruins in question, 
has, whether right or wrong, a sort of interest attached 
to it. 


300 TUTANKHAMEN 


In dealing with a question of this kind, one has 
to clear from the brain the fumes of unbalanced thought 
and to behold all things with a level head. Strong wine 
is one of the lesser causes of insobriety, and there is often 
more damage done by intemperance of thought in mat- 
ters of criticism than there is by actions committed 
under the influence of other forms of immoderation. 
There is sometimes a debauchery in the reasoning facul- 
ties of the polite, which sends their opinions rollicking 
on their way, just as drink will send a man staggering 
up the highroad. Temperance and sobriety are virtues 
which in their relation to thought have a greater value 
than they possess in any other regard; and we stand 
in more urgent need of missionaries to preach to us 
sobriety of opinion, a sort of critical teetotalism, than 
ever a drunkard stood in want of a pledge. 

This case of Phile and the Lower Nubian temples 
illustrates my meaning. On the one hand, there are 
those who tell us that the island temple, far from being 
damaged by flooding, is benefited thereby; and on the 
other hand, there are persons who urge that the en- 
gineers concerned in the making of the reservoir should 
be tarred and feathered to a man. Both these views 
are distorted and intemperate. Let us endeavour to 
straighten up our opinions, to walk them soberly and 
decorously before us in an atmosphere of propriety. 

It will be agreed by all those who know Egypt 
that a great dam was necessary, and it will be admitted 
that no reach of the Nile below Wady Halfa could be 
converted into a reservoir with so little detriment to 
modern interests as that of Lower Nubia. Here there 
were very few cultivated fields to be inundated and a 
very small number of people to be dislodged. There 


THK FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 301 


were, however, these important ruins, which would be 
flooded by such a reservoir, and the engineers therefore 
made a most serious attempt to find some other site for 
the building. A careful study of the Nile valley showed 
that the present site of the dam was the only spot at 
which a building of this kind could be set up without 
immensely increasing the cost of erection and greatly 
adding to the general difficulties and the possible dan- 
gers of the undertaking. The engineers had, therefore, 
to ask themselves whether the damage to the temple 
weighed against these considerations, and whether it 
was right or not to expend the extra sum from the taxes. 

The answer was plain enough. They were of opinion 
that the temples would not be appreciably damaged by 
their flooding. They argued, very justly, that the 
buildings would be under water for only five months 
in each year, and for seven months the ruins would ap- 
pear to be precisely as they always had been. It was 
not necessary, then, to reckon the loss of money and 
the added inconveniences on the one hand against the 
total loss of the temples on the other. It was simply 
needful to ask whether the temporary and apparently 
harmless inundation of the ruins each year was worth 
avoiding at the cost of several millions of precious Gov- 
ernment money; and looking at it purely from an ad- 
ministrative pomt of view, remembering that public 
money had to be economised and inextravagantly dealt 
with, I do not see that the answer given was in any way 
outrageous. Philz and the other temples were not to be 
harmed; they were but to be closed to the public, so to 
speak, for the winter months. 

This view of the question is not based upon any 
error. In regard to the possible destruction of Phil 


302 TUTANKHAMEN 


by the force of the water, Mr. Somers Clarke, F.S.A., 
whose name is known all over the world in connection 
with his work at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and elsewhere, 
states definitely * that he is convinced that the temples 
will not be overthrown by the flood, and his opinion is 
shared by all those who have studied the matter care- 
fully. Of course, it is possible that, in spite of all the 
works of consolidation which have been effected, some 
cracks may appear; but during the months when the 
temple is out of water each year, these may be repaired. 
I cannot see that there is the least danger of an exten- 
sive collapse of the buildings; but should this occur, the 
entire temple will have to be removed and set up else- 
where. Each summer and autumn when the water goes 
down and the buildings once more stand as they did in 
the days of the Ptolemies and Romans, we shall have 
ample time and opportunity to discuss the situation and 
to take all proper steps for the safeguarding of the 
temples against further damage; and even were we to 
be confronted by a mass of fallen ruins, scattered pell- 
mell over the island by the power of the water, I am 
convinced that every block could be replaced before the 
flood rose again. The temple of Maharraka was en- 
tirely rebuilt in three or four weeks. 

Now, as to the effect of the water upon the reliefs 
and inscriptions with which the walls of the temple at 
Phile are covered. In June, 1905, I reported t that 
a slight disintegration of the surface of the stone was 
noticeable, and that the sharp lines of the hieroglyphs 
had become somewhat blurred. This was due to the ac- 
tion of the salts in the sandstone; but these salts soon 


* Proc. Soc. Antiq., April 20th, 1898. 
j{ Les Annales du Service des Antiquités d@Egypte, vii, 1, p. 74. 


THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 303 


disappear, and the disintegration will not continue. The 
Report on the temples of Phila, issued by the Ministry 
of Public Works, in 1908, makes this quite clear; and 
I may add that the proof of the statement is to be found 
at the many points of the Nile where there are the re- 
mains of quay walls dating from Pharaonic times. 
Many of these quays are constructed of inscribed blocks 
of a stone precisely similar in quality to that used at 
Phile; and although they have been submerged for 
many hundreds of years, the lines of the hieroglyphs 
are almost as sharp now as they ever were. The action 
of the water appears to have little effect upon sand- 
stone, and it may thus be safely predicted that the reliefs 
and inscriptions at Phile will not suffer. 

There were still some traces of colour upon certain 
reliefs, and these have disappeared, but archeologically 
the loss was insignificant, and artistically it was not 
much felt. With regard to the colour upon the capitals 
of the columns in the Hall of Isis, however, one must 
admit that its destruction was a loss to us. I urged very 
strongly that these capitals should be removed and re- 
placed by dummies, or else most carefully copied in 
facsimile, but Sir Gaston Maspero did not think that 
the loss justified the expense, in which decision I believe 
him to have been gravely in error. 

Such is the case of Phile when looked at from a 
practical point of view. Artistically and sentimentally, 
of course, one deeply regrets the flooding of the temple. 
Phile, with its palms, was a very charming sight, and 
although the island still looks very picturesque each 
year, both when it rises from the lake of the water and 
also when the flood has receded and the ground is 
covered with grass and vegetation, it will not again 


304 TUTANKHAMEN 


possess the rich foliage of the palms which once caused 
it to be known to artists as the “Pearl of Egypt.” But 
these are considerations which are to be taken into 
account with very great caution, as standing against 
the interests of modern Egypt. If Phile were to be 
destroyed, one might, very properly, desire that modern 
interests should not receive sole consideration; but it 
was not to be destroyed, or even much damaged, and 
consequently the lover of Phile had but two objections 
to offer to the operations: firstly, that the temples would 
be hidden from sight during a part of each year; and 
secondly, that water was an incongruous and unhar- 
monious element to introduce into the sanctuaries of the 
gods. 

Let us consider these two objections. As to the 
hiding of the temple under water, we have to consider to 
what ciass of people the examination of the ruins is 
necessary. Archeologists, officials, residents, students, 
and all natives, are able to visit the place in the autumn, 
when the island stands high and dry, and the weather is 
not uncomfortably hot. Every person who desires to 
see Phile in its original condition can arrange to make 
his journey to Lower Nubia in the autumn or early 
winter. It is only the ordinary winter tourist who will 
find the ruins lost to view beneath the brown waters; 
and while his wishes are certainly to be consulted to 
some extent, there can be no question that the fortunes © 
of the Egyptian farmers must receive the prior at- 
tention. 

And as to the incongruity of the introduction of the 
water into these sacred precincts, one may first remark 
that water stands each year in the temples of Karnak, 
Luxor, the Ramesseum, Shenhur, Esneh, and many 











THE COLOSSI AT THEBES 
Behind them is the Theban Necropolis. 





THE COLOSSI AT THEBES DURING THE INUNDATION 





THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 305 


another, introduced by the natural rise of the Nile, thus 
giving us a quieting familiarity with such a condition; 
and one may further point out that the presence of 
water in a building is not (speaking archeologically ) 
more discordant than that of the palms and acacias 
which clustered around the ruins previous to the build- 
ing of the dam, and gave Phile its peculiar charm. 
Both water and trees are out of place in a temple once 
swept and garnished, and it is only a habit of thought 
that makes the trees which grow in such ruins more con- 
gruous to the eye than water lapping around the pillars 
and taking the fair reflections of the stonework. 

What remains, then, of the objections? Nothing, 
except an undefined sense of dismay that persists in 
spite of all arguments. There are few persons who 
will not feel this sorrow at the flooding of Philew, who 
will not groan inwardly as the water rises each year; 
and yet I cannot too emphatically repeat that there is 
no real cause for this apprehension and distress. 

A great deal of damage has been done to the prestige 
of the archzologist by the ill-considered outburst of 
those persons who have allowed this natural perturba- 
tion to have full sway in their minds. The man or 
woman who has protested the loudest has seldom been 
in a position even to offer an opinion. Thus every tem- 
perate thinker has come to feel a greater distaste for the 
propaganda of those persons who would have hindered 
the erection of the dam, than for the actual effect of its 
erection. We must avoid hasty and violent judgment 
as we would the plague. No honest man will deny that 
the closing of Phile for half the year is anything but 
a very regrettable necessity; but it has come to this pass, 
that a self-respecting person will be very chary in ad- 


306 TUTANKHAMEN 


mitting that he is not mightily well satisfied with the 
issue of the whole business. 

A poetic effusion was published at the time, bewail- 
ing the “death” of Philz, and because the author is 
famous the world over for the charm of his writing, it 
was read, and its lament echoed by a large number of 
persons. It is necessary to remind the reader, however, 
that because a man is a great artist, it does not follow 
that he has a sober judgment. A man and his art, of 
course, are not to be confused; and perhaps it is unfair 
to assess the art by the artist, but there are many per- 
sons who will understand my meaning when I suggest 
that it is extremely difficult to give serious attention 
to writers or speakers of a certain class. Phile is not 
dead. It may safely be said that the temples will last 
as long as the dam itself. Let us never forget that Past 
and Present walk hand in hand, and as between friends, 
there must always be much “give and take.” How 
many millions of pounds, I wonder, has been spent by 
the Government, from the revenues derived from the 
living Egyptians, for the excavation and preservation 
of the records of the past? Will the dead not make in 
return this sacrifice for the benefit of the striving 
farmers whose money has been used for the resuscitation 
of their history? 

A. great deal was said at the time regarding the de- 
struction of the ancient inscriptions which are cut in 
such numbers upon the granite rocks in the region of 
the First Cataract, many of which are of great historical 
importance. Vast quantities of granite were quarried 
for the building of the dam, and fears were expressed 
that in the course of this work these graffiti would be 
blasted into powder. It is necessary to say, therefore, 


ee ee 


THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA 307 


that with the exception of one inscription which was 
damaged when the first quarrymen set to work upon the 
preliminary tests for suitable stone, not a single hiero- 
glyph was harmed. I myself numbered all the inscrip- 
tions in white paint and marked out quarrying conces- 
sions, while several watchmen were set to guard these 
important relics. In this work, as in all else, the De- 
partment of Antiquities received the most generous as- 
sistance from the Department concerned with the build- 
ing of the dam; and I should like to take this oppor- 
tunity of saying that archeologists owe a far greater 
debt to the officials in charge of the various works at 
Aswan than they do to the bulk of their own fellow- 
workers. The desire to save every scrap of archeologi- 
cal information was dominant in the minds of all con- 
cerned in the work throughout the whole undertaking. 

Besides the temples of Phile, there are several other 
ruins which were flooded in part by the water when the 
heightening of the reservoir was completed. On the 
island of Bigeh, over against Phile, there is a little 
temple of no great historical value, which passed under 
water. The cemeteries on this island, and also on the 
mainland in this neighbourhood, were completely ex- 
cavated, and yielded most important information. Far- 
ther up stream there stands the little temple of Dabdod. 
This was repaired and strengthened, and has rot come 
to any harm; while all the cemeteries in the vicinity, of 
course, were cleared out. We next come to the fortress 
and quarries of Kertassi, which are partly flooded. 
These were put into good order, and there need be no 
fear of their being damaged. ‘The temple of Tafeh, a 
few miles farther to the south, was also safeguarded, and 
all the ancient graves were excavated. 


308 TUTANKHAMEN 


Next comes the great temple of Kalabsheh, which, 
when my report was made, was in a sorry state. The 
great hall was filled with the ruins of the fallen colon- 
nade and its roof; the hypostyle hall was a mass of 
tumbled blocks over which the visitor was obliged to 
climb; and all the courts and chambers were heaped up 
with debris. Now, however, all this has been set to 
rights, and the temple stands once more in its glory. 
The water floods the lower levels of the building each 
year for a few months, but there is no chance of a col- 
lapse taking place, and the only damage was the loss of 
the colour upon the reliefs in the inner chambers, and 
the washing away of some later Coptic paintings in the 
first hall, which, however, were first copied in facsimile. 

The temple is not very frequently visited, and it 
cannot be said that its closing for each winter is keenly 
felt; and since it will certainly come to no harm under 
the gentle Nile, I do not see that its fate need cause any 
consternation. Let those who are able visit this fine ruin 
in the early months of the winter, and they will be re- 
warded for their trouble by a view of a magnificent 
temple in what can only be described as apple-pie order. 
I venture to think that a building of this kind, washed 
by the water, is a more inspiring sight than a tumbled 
mass of ruins rising from amidst an encroaching jumble 
of native hovels, such as it was when I first reported 
on it. 

Farther up the river stands the temple of Dendir. - 
This is partly inundated, though the main portion of 
the building stands above the highest level of the reser- 
voir. Extensive repairs were carried out here, and every 
grave in the vicinity was examined. Somewhat farther 
to the south stands the imposing temple of Dakkeh, the 


THE FLOODING OF LOWER NUBIA _ 309 


lower levels of which are flooded. This temple was 
most extensively patched up and strengthened, and no 
damage of any kind has been caused by its yearly in- 
undation. The vast cemeteries in the neighbourhood 
were all excavated, and the remains of the town were 
thoroughly examined. Finally, the temple of Ma- 
harraka requires to be mentioned. The building in 1907 
was a complete ruin, but it was carefully rebuilt, and 
now it is quite capable of withstanding the water. From 
this point to the southern end of the new reservoir there 
are no temples below the flood-level; and every grave 
and other relic along the entire banks of the river has 
been examined. 

In 1907, the condition of the monuments of Lower 
Nubia was very bad. The temples already mentioned 
were in a most deplorable state; the cemeteries were be- 
ing robbed, and there was no proper organisation for 
the protection of the ancient sites. There are, moreover, 
several temples above the level of high water, and these 
were also in a sad condition. Gerf Husén was both 
dirty and dilapidated; Wady Sabta was deeply buried 
in sand; Amada was falling to pieces; Derr was the 
receptacle for the refuse of the town; and even Abu 
Simbel itself was in a dangerous state. In my report 
I gave a gloomy picture indeed of the plight of the 
monuments. But now all this is changed. Every tem- 
ple has been set in order; many new watchmen were 
appointed; and to-day this territory may be said to be 
the “show” place of the Upper Nile. Now, it must be 
admitted that the happy change is due solely to the 
attention to which the country was subjected by reason 
of its flooding; and it is not the less true because it is 
paradoxical that the proposed submersion of certain 


310 TUTANKHAMEN 


temples saved all the Lower Nubian monuments from 
rapid destruction at the hands of robbers, ignorant na- 
tives, and barbarous European visitors. What has been 
lost in Phile has been gained a thousand-fold in the 
repairing and safeguarding of the temples, and in the 
scientific excavation of the cemeteries, farther to the 
south. : 

Here, then, is the sober fact of the matter. Are 
the English and Egyptian officials such vandals who 
have voted over a hundred thousand pounds for the 
safeguarding of the monuments of Lower Nubia? 
What country in the whole world has spent such vast 
sums of money on the preservation of the relics of the 
past as has Egypt during the years of the British occu- 
pation? The Government treated the question through- 
out in a fair and generous manner; and those who rail 
at the officials will do well to consider seriously the re- 
marks which I have dared to make upon the subject of 
temperate criticism. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 


ISTORY,” says Sir J. Seeley, “lies before 
H science as a mass of materials out of which a 
political doctrine can be deduced. . . . Poli- 
tics are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, 
and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight 
of its relation to practical politics. . . . Politics and 
history are only different aspects of the same study.” 
These words, spoken by a great historian, form the 
keynote of a book which has had an exceptionally wide 
popularity; and they may therefore be regarded as 
having some weight. Yet what historian of old Egyp- 
tian affairs concerns himself with the present welfare 
and future prospects of the country?—or how many 
statesmen in Egypt give elose attention to a study of 
the past? To the professor, the Egypt of modern times 
offers no scope for his erudition, and gives him no op- 
portunity of making those “discoveries,” which often 
are all he cares about. To the statesman, Egyptology 
appears to be but a pleasant amusement, the main value 
of which is the finding of pretty beads and scarabs suit- 
able for the necklaces of his lady friends. Neither the 
one nor the other would for a moment admit that Egyp- 
tology and Egyptian politics “are only different aspects 
of the same study.” * And yet there can be no doubt 
that they are. 


* The Expansion of England. 
311 


312 TUTANKHAMEN 


It will be argued that the historian of ancient Egypt 
deals with a period so extremely remote that it can have 
no bearing upon the conditions of modern times, when 
the inhabitants of Egypt have altered their language, 
religion, and customs, and the Mediterranean has ceased 
to be the active centre of the civilised world. But it is 
to be remembered that the study of Egyptology carries 
one down to the Mohammedan invasion without much 
straining of the term, and merges then into the study 
of the Arabic period at so many points that no real 
termination can be given to the science; while the fact 
of the remoteness of its beginnings but serves to give 
it a greater value, since the vista before the eyes is wider. 

It is my object in this chapter to show that the an- 
cient history of Egypt has a real bearing on certain 
aspects of the polemics of the country. I will take but 
one subject—namely, that of Egypt’s foreign relations 
and her wars in other lands. It will be best, for this 
purpose, to show first of all that the ancient and modern 
FEigyptians are one and the same people. 

Professor Elliot Smith, F.R.S., has shown clearly 
enough, from the study of bones of all ages, that the 
ancient and modern inhabitants of the Nile valley are 
precisely the same people anthropologically; and this 
fact at once sets the matter upon a unique footing: for, 
with the possible exception of China, there is no nation 
in the world which can be proved thus to have retained 
its type for so long a period. This one fact makes any 
parallel with Greece or Rome impossible. The modern 
Greeks are not absolutely identical, anthropologically, 
with the ancient Greeks except in certain districts, for 
the blood has become rather mixed; the Italians are not 
altogether the same as the old Romans; the English 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 313 


are the result of a comparatively recent conglomeration 
of types. But in Egypt the subjects of the archaic 
Pharaohs, it seems certain, were exactly similar to those 
of the modern sultans, and new blood has never been 
introduced to an appreciable extent, not even by the 
Arabs. The nation has been divided for thirteen hun- 
dred years into two parts, the one Coptic or Christian 
and the other Moslem, and these do not inter-marry; 
yet they are one race, with no fundamental difference 
though with many dissimilar characteristics of manner 
and mind. ‘Thus, if there is any importance in the 
bearing of history upon politics, we have in Egypt a 
better chance of appreciating it than we have in the case 
of any other country. 

It is true that the language has altered, but this is 
not a matter of first-rate importance. A Jew is not less 
typical because he speaks German, French, or English: 
and the cracking of skulls in Ireland is introduced as 
easily in English as it was in Erse. The old language 
of the Egyptian hieroglyphs actually is not yet dead; 
for, in its Coptic form, it is still spoken by many Chris- 
tian Egyptians, who will salute their friends in that 
tongue, or bid them good-morning or good-night there- 
in. Ancient Egyptian in this form is read in the Coptic 
churches; and God is called upon by the same name 
which was given to Amon and his colleagues. Many 
old Egyptian words have crept into the Arabic lan- 
guage, and are now in common use in the country while 
often the old words are confused with Arabic words of 
similar sound. 

Thus at Abydos, the archaic fortress is now called 
the Shtinet es Zebib, which in Arabic would have the 
inexplicable meaning, “the store-house of raisins”; but 


314 TUTANKHAMEN 


in the old Egyptian language its name, of similar sound, 
meant, “the fortress of the Ibis-jars,” several of these 
sacred birds having been buried there in jars, after 
the place had been disused as a military stronghold. A 
large number of Egyptian towns still bear their hiero- 
glyphic names: Aswan, (Kom) Ombo, Edfu, Esneh, 
Keft, Kus, Keneh, Dendereh, for example. ‘The real 
origin of these being now forgotten, some of them have 
been given false Arabic derivations, and stories have 
been invented to account for the peculiar significance 
of the words thus introduced. The word Silsileh in 
Arabic means a “chain,” and a place in Upper Egypt 
which bears that name is now said to be so called be- 
cause a certain king here stretched a chain across the 
river to interrupt the shipping; but in reality the name 
is derived from a mispronounced hieroglyphic word 
meaning “a boundary.” Similarly the town of Daman- 
har in Lower Egypt is said to be the place at which a 
great massacre took place, for in Arabic the name may 
be interpreted as meaning “rivers of blood,” whereas 
actually in ancient Egyptian the name means simply 
“the Precinct of Horus.” The archeological traveller 
in Egypt meets with instances of the continued use of 
the language of the Pharaohs at every turn; and there 
are few things that make the science of Egyptology 
more alive, or remove it further from the atmosphere 
of the museum, than this hearing of the old words 
actually spoken by the modern inhabitants of the land. 

The religion of ancient Egypt, like those of Greece 
and Rome, was killed by Christianity, which largely 
gave place, at a later date, to Mohammedanism; and 
yet, in the hearts of the people there are still an ex- 
traordinary number of the old pagan beliefs. I will 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 315 


mention a few instances, taking them at random from 
my memory. 

In ancient days the ithiphallic god Min was the 
patron of the crops, who watched over the growth of 
the grain. In modern times a degenerate figure of this 
god Min, made of whitewashed wood and mud, may be 
seen standing, like a scarecrow, in the fields throughout 
Egypt. When the sailors cross the Nile they may often 
be heard singing Ya Amini, Ya Amini, “O Amon, O 
Amon,” as though calling upon that forgotten god for 
assistance. At Aswan those who are about to travel 
far still go up to pray at the site of the travellers’ shrine, 
which was dedicated to the gods of the cataracts. At 
Thebes the women climb a certain hill to make their 
supplications at the now lost sanctuary of Meretsegert, 
the serpent goddess of olden times. A snake, the relic 
of the household goddess, is often kept as a kind of pet 
in the houses of the peasants. 

Barren women still go to the ruined temples of the 
forsaken gods in the hope that there is virtue in the 
stones; and I myself have given permission to dis- 
appointed husbands to take their childless wives to 
these places, where they have kissed the stones and em- 
braced the figures of the gods. The hair of the jackal 
is burnt in the presence of dying people, even of the 
upper classes, unknowingly to avert the jackal-god 
Anubis, the Lord of Death. A scarab representing the 
god of creation is sometimes placed in the bath of a 
young married woman to give virtue to the water. A 
decoration in white paint over the doorways of certain 
houses in the south is a relic of the religious custom of 
placing a bucranium there to avert evil. Certain temple- 
watchmen still call upon the spirits resident in the sanc- 


316 TUTANKHAMEN 


tuaries to depart before they will enter the building. At 
Karnak a statue of the goddess Sekhmet is regarded 
with holy awe; and the goddess who once was said to 
have massacred mankind is even now thought to delight 
in slaughter. The golden barque of Amon-Ra, which 
once floated upon the sacred lake of Karnak, is said to 
be seen sometimes by the natives at the present time, 
who have not yet forgotten its former existence. 

In the processional festival of Abu’l Haggag, the 
patron saint of Luxor, whose mosque and tomb stand 
upon the ruins of the Temple of Amon, a boat is 
dragged over the ground in unwitting remembrance of 
the dragging of the boat of Amon in the procession of 
that god. Similarly in the Mouled el Nébi procession 
at Luxor, boats placed upon carts are drawn through 
the streets, Just as one may see them in the ancient 
paintings and reliefs. The patron gods of Kom Ombo, 
Horur and Sebek, yet remain in the memories of the 
peasants of the neighbourhood as the two brothers who 
lived in the temple in the days of old. A robber enter- 
ing a tomb will smash the eyes of the figures of the gods 
and deceased persons represented theremn, that they may 
not observe his actions, just as did his ancestors four 
thousand years ago. At Gurneh a farmer recently broke 
the arms of an ancient statue which lay half-buried near 
his fields, because he believed that they had damaged 
his crops. In the south of Egypt a pot of water is 
placed upon the graves of the dead, that their ghost, or 
ka, as it would have been called in old times, may not 
suffer from thirst; and the living will sometimes call 
upon the name of the dead, standing at night in the 
cemeteries. | 

The ancient magic of Egypt is still widely practised, 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 317 


and many of the formule used in modern times are 
familiar to the Egyptologist. The Egyptian, indeed, 
lives in a world much influenced by magic, and thickly 
populated by spirits, demons, and djins. Educated 
men, holding Government appointments, and dressing 
in the smartest European manner, will describe their 
miraculous adventures and their meetings with djins. 
An Egyptian gentleman, holding an important admin- 
istrative post, told me how his cousin was wont to 
change himself into a cat at night time, and to prowl 
about the town. When a boy his father noticed this 
peculiarity, and on one occasion chased and beat the 
cat, with the result that the boy’s body next morning 
was found to be covered with stripes and bruises. ‘The 
uncle of my informant once spoke such strong language 
(magically) over a certain wicked book that it began 
to tremble violently, and finally made a dash for it out 
of the window. 

This same personage was once sitting beneath a 
palm-tree with a certain magician (who, I fear, was also 
a conjurer) when, happening to remark on the clusters 
of dates twenty feet or so above his head, his friend 
stretched his arms upwards and his hands were im- 
mediately filled with the fruit. At another time this 
magician left his overcoat by mistake in a railway car- 
riage, and only remembered it when the train was a 
mere speck upon the horizon; but, on the utterance of 
certain words, the coat immediately flew through the 
air back to him, like a great flapping bat. 

I mention these particular instances because they 
were told to me by educated persons; but amongst the 
peasants even more incredible stories are gravely ac- 
cepted. An Omdeh, or headman, of the village of 


318 TUTANKHAMEN 


Chaghb, not far from Luxor, submitted an official com- 
plaint to the police a few years ago against an afrit or 
devil which was doing much mischief to him and his 
neighbours, snatching up oil-lamps and pouring the oil 
over the terrified villagers, throwing stones at passers- 
by, and so forth. Spirits of the dead in like manner 
haunt the living, and often do them mischief. At Luxor, 
I remember, the ghost of a well-known robber per- 
secuted his widow to such an extent that she finally went 
mad. A remarkable parallel to this case, dating from 
Pharaonic days, may be mentioned. It is the letter of a 
haunted widower to his dead wife, in which he asks her 
why she persecutes him, since he was always kind to her 
during her life, nursed her through illnesses, and never 
grieved her heart.* 

These instances might be multiplied, but those which 
I have quoted will serve to show that the old gods are 
still alive, and that the famous magic of the Egyptians 
is not yet a thing of the past. Let us now turn to the 
affairs of everyday life. 

An archeological traveller in Egypt cannot fail to 
observe the similarity between old and modern customs 
as he rides through the villages and across the fields. 
The houses, when not built upon the European plan, 
are surprisingly like those of ancient days. The old 
cornice still survives, and the rows of dried palm-stems, 
from which its form was originally derived, are still to 
be seen on the walls of gardens and courtyards. The 
huts or shelters of dried corn-stalks, so often erected in 
the fields, are precisely the same as those used in pre- 
historic days; and the archaic bunches of corn-stalks 
smeared with mud, which gave their form to later stone 

* Maspero: Htudes Egyptologiques, i, 145. 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 319 


columns, are set up to this day, though their stone pos- 

terity are now in ruins. Looking through the doorway 

of one of these ancient houses, the traveller, perhaps, 

sees a woman grinding corn or kneading bread in ex- | 
actly the same manner as her ancestress did in the days 

of the Pharaohs. A native once asked to be allowed to 

purchase from us some of the ancient millstones lying in 
one of the Theban temples, in order to re-use them on 

his farm. 

The traveller will notice in some shady corner, the 
village barber shaving the heads and faces of his 
patrons, just as he is seen in the Theban tomb-paintings 
of thousands of years ago; and the small boys who 
scamper across the road will have just the same tufts 
of hair left for decoration on their shaven heads as had 
the boys of ancient Thebes and Memphis. In another 
house, where a death has occurred, the mourning women, 
waving the same blue cloth which was the token of 
mourning in ancient days, will toss their arms about in 
gestures familiar to every student of ancient scenes. 
Presently the funeral will issue forth, and the men will 
sing that solemn yet cheery tune which never fails to 
call to mind the far-famed Maneros—that song which 
Herodotus describes as a plaintive funeral dirge, and 
which Plutarch asserts was suited at the same time to 
festive occasions. 

In some other house a marriage will be taking place, 
and the singers and pipers will, in like manner, recall 
the scenes upon the monuments. The former have a 
favourite gesture, the placing of the hand behind the ear 
as they sing, which is frequently shown in ancient repre- 
sentations of such festive scenes. The dancing girls, 
too, are here to be seen, their eyes and cheeks heavily 


320 TUTANKHAMEN 


painted, as were those of their ancestresses; and in their 
hands are the same tambourines as were carried by their 
class in Pharaonic paintings and reliefs. The same date- 
wine which intoxicated the worshippers of the Egyptian 
Bacchus goes the round of this village company, and 
the same food stuff, the same small, flat loaves of bread 
are eaten. 

Passing out into the fields, the traveller observes the 
ground raked into the small squares for irrigation which 
the prehistoric farmer made; and the plough is shaped 
as it always was. The shadtf, or water-hoist, is pa- 
tiently worked as it has been for thousands of years; 
while the cylindrical hoist employed in Lower Egypt 
was invented and introduced in Ptolemaic times. 
Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner repre- 
sented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing 
and reaping have not changed. Along the embanked 
roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file past against the 
sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures de- 
picted so often upon the monuments. Overhead there 
flies the vulture-goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus 
hovers near by. Across the road ahead slinks the jackal, 
Anubis; and under one’s feet crawls Khepera, the 
scarab; and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the 
horned ram of Amon. In all directions the hieroglyphs 
of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as though 
some old temple inscription had come to life. The letter 
m, the owl, goes hooting past. The letter a, the eagle, 
circles overhead; the sign ur, the wagtail, flits at the 
roadside, chirping at the sign rekh, the peewit. Along 
the road comes the sign ab, the frolicking calf; and near 
it is ka, the bull; while behind them walks the sign fa, 
a man carrying a basket on his head. In all directions 





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3 Leh oY eae 


GERF-HUSEN 
A typical Nubian Village. 


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INSCRIBED GRANITE ROCKS NEAR THE FIRST CATARACT 


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THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 321 


are the figures from which the ancients made their hiero- 
glyphic script; and thus that wonderful old writing at 
once ceases to be mysterious, a thing of long ago, and 
one realises how natural a product of the country it was. 

In a word, ancient and modern Egyptians are 
fundamentally similar. Nor is there any great differ- 
ence to be observed between the country’s relations with 
foreign powers in ancient days and those of the last hun- 
dred years. For three or four thousand years Egypt 
has been occupied by foreign powers or ruled by foreign 
dynasties, just as at the present day; and a foreign army 
was retained in the country during most of the later 
periods of ancient history. ‘There were always numer- 
ous foreigners settled in Egypt, and in Ptolemaic and 
Roman times Alexandria and Memphis swarmed with 
them. The great powers of the civilised world were 
always watching Egypt as they do now, not always in 
a friendly attitude to that one of themselves which oc- 
cupied the country; and the chief power with which 
Egypt was concerned in the time of the Ramesside 
Pharaohs inhabited Asia Minor, and perhaps Turkey, 
just as in the Middle Ages and the last century. Then, 
as in modern times, Egypt had much of her attention 
held by the Sudan, and constant expeditions had to be 
made into the regions above the cataracts. Thus it 
cannot be argued that ancient history offers no prec- 
edent for modern affairs because all things have now 
changed. Things have changed extremely little, broadly 
speaking; and general lines of conduct have the same 
significance at the present time as they had in the past. 

I wish now to give an outline of Egypt’s relation- 
ship to her most important neighbour, Syria, in order 
that the bearing of history upon modern political mat- 


322 TUTANKHAMEN 


ters may be demonstrated; for it would seem that the 
records of the past make clear a tendency which is now 
somewhat overlooked. 

From the earliest historical times the Egyptians 
have endeavoured to hold Syria and Palestine as a vas- 
sal state. One of the first Pharaohs with whom we meet 
in Egyptian history, King Zeser of Dynasty III, is 
known to have sent a fleet to the Lebanon in order to 
procure cedar-wood, and there is some evidence to show 
that he held sway over the country. For how many 
centuries previous to his reign the Pharaohs had over- 
run Syria we cannot now say, but there is reason to sup- 
pose that Zeser initiated the aggressive policy of Egypt 
in Asia. Sahura, a Pharaoh of Dynasty V, attacked 
the Phoenician coast with his fleet, and returned to the 
Nile valley with a number of Syrian captives. Pepi I, 
of the succeeding dynasty, also attacked the coast cities, 
and Pepi II had considerable intercourse with Asia. 
Amenemhet I, of Dynasty XII, fought in Syria, and 
appears to have brought it once more under Egyptian 
sway. Senusert I seems to have controlled the country 
to some extent, for Egyptians lived there in some num- 
bers. Senusert III won a great victory over the Asi- 
atics in Syria; and a stela and statue belonging to 
Egyptian officials have been found at Gezer, between 
Jerusalem and the sea. After each of the above-men- 
tioned wars it is to be presumed that the Egyptians held 
Syria for some years, though little is now known of the 
events of these far-off times. 

During the Hyksos dynasties in Kgypt there lived a 
Pharaoh named Khyan, who was of Semitic extraction; 
and there is some reason to suppose that he ruled from 
Baghdad to the Sudan, he and his fathers having cre- 


en 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 323 


ated a great Egyptian Empire by the aid of foreign 
troops. Egypt’s connection with Asia during the 
Hyksos rule is not clearly defined, but the very fact 
that these foreign kings were anxious to call themselves 
“Pharaohs” shows that Egypt dominated in the east 
end of the Mediterranean. The Hyksos kings of 
Egypt very probably held Syria in fee, being possessed 
of both countries, but preferring to hold their court in 
Kigypt. 

We now come to the great Dynasty X VIII, and we 
learn more fully of the Egyptian invasions of Syria. 
Ahmose I drove the Hyksos out of the Delta and pur- 
sued them through Judah. His successor, Amenhotep 
I, appears to have seized all the country as far as the 
Kuphrates; and Thutmose I, his son, was able to boast 
that he ruled even unto that river. Thutmose III, 
Egypt’s greatest Pharaoh, led invasion after invasion, 
into Syria, so that his name for generations was a terror 
to the inhabitants. From the Euphrates to the Fourth 
Cataract of the Nile the countries acknowledged him 
king and the mighty Egyptian fleet patrolled the seas. 
This Pharaoh fought no less than seventeen campaigns 
in Asia, and he left to his son the most powerful throne 
in the world. Amenhotep II maintained this empire 
and. quelled the revolts of the Asiatics with a strong 
hand. Thutmose LV, his son, conducted two expeditions 
into Syria; and the next king, Amenhotep III, was 
acknowledged throughout the country. 

That extraordinary dreamer, Akhnaton, the suc- 
ceeding Pharaoh, allowed the empire to pass from him 
owing to his religious objections to war; but, after his 
death, Tutankhamen once more led the Egyptian 
armies into Asia. Horemheb also made a bid for Syria; 


324 TUTANKHAMEN 


and Sety I recovered Palestine. Rameses II, his son, 
penetrated to North Syria; but, having come into con- 
tact with the new power of the Hittites, he was unable 
to hold the country. The new Pharaoh, Merenptah, 
seized Canaan and laid waste the land of Israel. A few 
years later, Rameses III led his fleet and army to the 
Syrian coast and defeated the Asiatics in a great sea- 
battle. He failed to hold the country, however, and 
after his death Egypt remained impotent for two cen- 
turies. Then, under Sheshonk I of Dynasty XXII, a 
new attempt was made, and Jerusalem was captured. 
Takeloth II, of the same dynasty, sent thither an 
Egyptian army to help in the overthrow of Shal- 
maneser IT. 

From this time onwards, the power of Egypt had 
so much declined that the invasions into Syria of neces- 
sity become more rare. Shabaka, of Dynasty XXV, 
concerned himself deeply with Asiatic politics, and at- 
tempted to bring about a state of affairs which would 
have given him the opportunity of seizing the country. 
Pharaoh Necho, of the succeeding dynasty, invaded Pal- 
estine and advanced towards the Euphrates. He recov- 
ered for Egypt her Syrian province, but it was speedily 
lost again. Apries, a few years later, captured the 
Pheenician coast and invaded Palestine; but the coun- 
try did not remain for long under Egyptian rule. It is 
not necessary to record all the Syrian wars of the 
Dynasty of the Ptolemies. Egypt and Asia were now 
closely connected, and at several periods during this 
phase of Egyptian history the Asiatic province came 
under the control of the Pharaohs. The wars of 
Ptolemy I in Syria were conducted on a large scale. 
In the reign of Ptolemy III there were three cam- 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 325 


paigns, and I cannot refrain from quoting a contem- 
porary record of the king’s power, if only for the 
splendour of its wording :— 

“The great King Ptolemy .. . having inherited 
from his father the royalty of Egypt and Libya and 
Syria and Phoenicia and Cyprus and Lycia and Caria 
and the Cyclades, set out on a campaign into Asia with 
infantry and cavalry forces, and a naval armament and 
elephants, both Troglodyte (Bedouin) and Ethiopic. 

But having become master of all the country 
within the Euphrates, and of Cilicia and Pamphylia 
and Ionia and the Hellespont and Thrace, and of all 
the military forces and elephants in these countries, and 
having made the monarchs in all these places his sub- 
jects, he crossed the Euphrates, and having brought 
under him Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Susiana 
and Persia and Media, and all the rest as far as Bac- 
triana . .. he sent forces through the canals... .” 
(here the text breaks off). 

Later in this dynasty Ptolemy VII was crowned 
King of Syria, but the kingdom did not remain long in 
his power. Cleopatra and Antony were rulers of a vast 
empire whose destinies were directed from Egypt. 
Then came the Romans, and for many years Syria and 
Egypt were sister provinces of one empire. 

There is no necessity to record the close connection 
between the two countries in Arabic times. For a large 
part of that era Egypt and Syria formed part of the 
same empire; and we constantly find Egyptians fighting 
in Asia. Now under Es Zahir Bébars, of the Baharide 
Mameluke Dynasty, we see them helping to subject 
Syria and Armenia; now under El-Mansir Kalaun, 
Damascus is captured; and now En Nasir Mohammed 


326 TUTANKHAMEN 


is found reigning from Tunis to Baghdad. In the Cir- 
cassian Mameluke Dynasty we see Kl Muayyad crush- 
ing a revolt in Syria, and El Ashraf Bursbey capturing 
King John of Cyprus and keeping his hand on Syria. 
And so the tale continues, until, as a final picture, we 
see Ibrahim Pasha leading the Egyptians into Asia and 
crushing the Turks at Iconium. 


Such is the long list of wars waged by Egypt in 
Syria. Are we to suppose that these continuous incur- 
sions into Asia have suddenly come to an end? Are we 
to imagine that because there has been a respite for a 
hundred years the precedent of six thousand years has 
now to be disregarded? By the re-conquest of the 
Sudan it has been shown that the old political neces- 
sities still exist for Egypt in the south, impelling her to 
be mistress of the upper reaches of the Nile, whence, in 
ancient times, she levied the great armies of splendid 
black fighting-men by whose aid she waged her wars. 
Is there now no longer any chance of her expanding in 
other directions should her hands become free? 

The reader may answer with the argument that in 
early days England made invasion after invasion into 
France, yet ceased after a while to do so. But this is 
no parallel. England was impelled to war with France 
because the English monarchs believed themselves to 
be, by inheritance, kings of a large part of France; and 
when they ceased to believe this they ceased to make 
war. ‘The Pharaohs of Egypt never considered them- 
selves to be kings of Syria, and never used any title sug- 
gesting an inherited sovereignty. ‘They merely held 
Syria as a buffer state, and claimed no more than an 
overlordship there. Now Syria is still a buffer state, and 





THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 327 


the root of the trouble, therefore, still exists. I am quite 
sure that it is no meaningless phrase to say that Eng- 
land, so long as she has a controlling voice in the coun- 
cils of Egypt, will most carefully hold this tendency in 
check and prevent an incursion into Syria; but when that 
control is relaxed, it would require more than human 
strength to eradicate an Egyptian tendency—nay, a 
habit, of six thousand years’ standing. Try as she may, 
Kigypt, as far as an historian can see, will not be able 
to prevent herself and her armies from the Sudan pass- 
ing ultimately into Syria again. How or when this will 
take place, an Egyptologist cannot see, for he is accus- 
tomed to deal in long periods of time, and to consider 
the centuries as others might the decades. It may not 
come for a hundred years or more, for France and Eng- 
land at present have Syria and Palestine in their hands, 
and the Sudan is well held; but a readjustment of 
power might bring it about at any time. 

In 1907, there was a brief moment when Egypt 
appeared to be, quite unknowingly, on the verge of an 
attempted re-conquest of her lost province. There was 
a misunderstanding with Turkey regarding the delinea- 
tion of the Syrio-Sinaitie frontier; and, immediately, 
the Egyptian Government took strong action and in- 
sisted that the question should be settled. Had there 
- been bloodshed, the seat of hostilities would have been 
Syria; and supposing that Egypt had been victorious, 
she would have pushed the opposing forces over the 
North Syrian frontier, in Asia Minor, and when peace 
was declared she would have found herself dictating 
terms from a point of vantage three hundred miles 
north of Jerusalem. Can it be supposed that she would 
then have desired to abandon the re-conquered terri- 


328 TUTANKHAMEN 


tory? In the late war, the British and Arab forces 
fought the Turks in Palestine, Egypt being the base of 
these operations; and it was a mere chance that the 
Egyptian army did not participate. The phrase “Eng- 
land in Egypt” has been given such prominence of late, 
that a far more important phrase, “Kgypt in Asia,” has 
been overlooked. Yet, whereas the former is a catch- 
word of only forty years’ standing, the latter has been 
familiar at the east end of the Mediterranean for forty 
momentous centuries, at the lowest computation, and 
rings in the ears of the Egyptologist all through the 
ages. I need thus no justification for recalling it in 
these pages. 

Now let us glance at Egypt’s north-western fron- 
tier. Behind the deserts which spread to the west of 
the Delta lies the oasis of Siwa; and from here there is 
a continuous line of communication with Tripoli and 
Tunis. Thus, in 1911, the outbreak of cholera at 
Tripoli necessitated the despatch of quarantine officials 
to the oasis, in order to prevent the spread of the dis- 
ease into Egypt, and in the late war that region had to 
be patrolled constantly. Now, of late years we have 
heard much talk regarding the Senussi fraternity, a 
Mohammedan sect which is often said to be preparing 
to descend upon Egypt. In 1909, the Egyptian Mamir 
of Siwa was murdered, and I remember it was freely 
stated that this act of violence was the beginning of the 
trouble. I have no idea as to the future danger, nor do 
I know whether this bogie of the west, which causes 
occasional anxiety in Egypt, is but a creation of the 
imagination; but it will be interesting to notice the 
frequent occurrence of hostilities in this direction. 

Whesx the curtain first rises upon archaic times, we 





THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 329 


find those far-off Pharaohs struggling with the Libyans, 
who penetrated into the Delta from Tripoli and else- 
where. In early dynastic history they are the chief ene- 
mies of the Egyptians, and great armies have to be 
levied to drive them back through Siwa to their homes. 
Again, in Dynasty XII, Amenemhet I had to despatch 
his son to drive these people out of Egypt; and at the 
beginning of Dynasty XVIII, Amenhotep I was 
obliged once more to give them battle. Sety I, of Dy- 
nasty XIX, made war upon them, and repulsed their 
invasion into Egypt. Rameses II had to face an alli- 
ance of Libyans, Lycians, and others, in the western 
Delta. His son, Merenptah, waged a desperate war 
with them, in order to defend Egypt against their 
incursions, a war which has been described as the most 
perilous in Egyptian history; and it was only after a 
battle in which nine thousand of the enemy were slain 
that the war came to an end. Rameses III, however, 
was again confronted with these persistent invaders, 
and only succeeded in checking them temporarily. 
Presently the tables were turned, and Dynasty XXII, 
which reigned so gloriously in Egypt, was Libyan in 
origin. No attempt was made thenceforth for many 
years to check the peaceful entrance of Libyans into 
Egypt, and soon that nation held a large part of the 
Delta. Occasional mention is made of troubles upon 
the north-west frontier, but little more is heard of any 
serious invasions. In Arabic times disturbances are not 
infrequent, and certain sovereigns, as for example, El- 
Manstr Kalaun, were obliged to invade the enemy’s 
country, thus extending Egypt’s power as far as Tunis. 

There is one lesson which may be learnt from the 
above facts—namely, that this frontier is somewhat 


330 TUTANKHAMEN 


exposed, and that incursions from North Africa, by 
way of Siwa, are historic possibilities. If the Senussi 
invasion of Egypt is ever attempted, it will not, at any 
rate, be without precedent. 

When England entered Egypt in 1882, she found a 
nation without external interests, a country too impov- 
erished and weak to think of aught else but its own sad 
condition. The reviving of this much-bled, anzmic 
people, and the reorganisation of the Government, 
occupied the whole attention of the Anglo-Egyptian 
officials, and placed Egypt before their eyes in only this 
one aspect. Egypt appeared to be but the Nile valley 
and the Delta, and, in truth, that was, and still is, quite 
as much as the hard-worked officials could well admin- 
ister. The one task of the regeneration of Egypt was 
all absorbing, and the country came to be regarded as 
a little land wherein a concise, clearly-defined, and 
compact problem could be worked out. 

Now, while this was most certainly the correct man- 
ner in which to face the question, and while Egypt has 
benefited enormously by this singleness of purpose in 
her officials, it was, historically, a false attitude. Egypt 
is not a little country: Egypt is a crippled empire. 
Throughout her history she has been the powerful rival 
of the people of Asia Minor. At one time she was mis- 
tress of the Sudan, Somaliland, Palestine, Syria, Libya, 
and Cyprus; and the Sicilians, Sardinians, Cretans, and 
even Greeks, stood in fear of the Pharaoh. In Arabic 
times she held Tunis and Tripoli, and even in the last 
century she was the foremost power at the east end of 
the Mediterranean. Napoleon, when he came to Egypt, 
realised this very thoroughly, and openly aimed to 
make her once more a mighty empire. But in 1882 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 331 


such fine dreams were not to be considered; there was 
too much work to be done in the Nile valley itself. 
The Egyptian Empire was forgotten, and Egypt was 
regarded as permanently a little country. The condi- 
tions which were found there were taken to be perma- 
nent conditions. They were not. England arrived 
when the country was in a most unnatural state as 
regards its foreign relations; and she was obliged to 
regard that state as chronic. This, though wise, was 
absolutely incorrect. Ligypt in the past never has been 
for more than a short period a single country; and all 
history goes to show that she will not always be single 
in the future. 

With the temporary loss of the Syrian province 
Egypt’s need for a navy ceased to exist; and the fact 
that she is really a naval power has now passed from 
men’s memory. Yet it was not much more than a cen- 
tury ago that Mohammed Ali fought a great naval 
battle with the Turks, and utterly defeated them. In 
ancient history the Egyptian navy was the terror of the 
Mediterranean, and her ships policed the east coast of 
Africa. In prehistoric times the Nile boats were built, 
it would seem, upon a seafaring plan; a fact that has led 
some scholars to suppose that the land was entered and 
colonised from across the waters. One talks of Eng- 
lishmen as being born to the sea, as having a natural 
and inherited tendency towards “business upon great 
waters”; and yet the English navy dates only from the 
days of Queen Elizabeth. It is true that the Plan- 
tagenet wars with France checked what was perhaps 
already a nautical bias, and that had it not been for the 
Norman conquest, England, perchance, would have 
become a sea power at an earlier date. But at best, the 


332 TUTANKHAMEN 


tendency is only a thousand years old. In Egypt it is 
six or seven thousand years old. It makes one smile to 
think of Egypt as a naval power. It is the business of 
the historian to refrain from smiling, and to remark 
only that absurd as it may sound, Egypt’s future is 
largely upon the water, as her past has been. It must 
be remembered that she was fighting great battles in 
huge warships three or four hundred feet in length at 
a time when Britons were paddling about in canoes. 

One of the ships built by the Pharaoh Ptolemy 
Philopator is said to have been four hundred and twenty 
feet long and to have had several banks of oars. It was 
rowed by four thousand sailors, while four hundred 
others managed the sails. Three thousand soldiers were 
also carried upon its decks. The royal dahabiyeh, which 
this Pharaoh used upon the Nile, was three hundred 
and thirty feet long, and was fitted with state rooms and 
private rooms of considerable size. Another vessel con- 
tained, besides the ordinary cabins, large bath-rooms, a 
library, and an astronomical observatory. It had eight 
towers, in which there were machines capable of hurling 
stones weighing three hundred pounds or more, and 
arrows eighteen feet in length. These huge vessels were 
built some two centuries before Cesar landed in 
Britain.* 

In conclusion, then, it must be repeated that the 
present Nile-centred policy in Egypt, though infinitely 
best for the country at this juncture, is an artificial one, 
unnatural to the nation except as a passing phase; and 
what may be called the Imperial policy is absolutely 
certain to take its place in time. History tells us over 
and over again that Syria is the natural dependant of 
Egypt, fought for or bargained for with the neighbour- 


* Athenezus v, 8. 


THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE 333 


ing countries to the north; that the Sudan is likewise a 
natural vassal which from time to time revolts and has 
to be re-conquered; and that Egypt’s most exposed 
frontier lies to the north-west. In conquering the Sudan 
at the end of the nineteenth century, the Egyptians 
were but fulfilling their destiny: it was a mere accident 
that their arms were aided by England and were 
directed against a Mahdi. In discussing seriously the 
situation in the western cases, they are working upon 
the precise rules laid down by history. And if their 
attention is not turned after a few years of indepen- 
dence to Syria, they will be defying rules even more 
precise, and, in the opinion of those who have the whole 
course of Egyptian history spread before them, will 
but be kicking against the pricks. Here, surely, we 
have an example of the value of the study of a nation’s 
history, which is not more or less than a study of its 
political tendencies. 

Speaking of the relationship of history to politics, 
Sir J. Seeley wrote: “I tell you that when you study 
English history, you study not the past of England 
only, but her future. It is the welfare of your coun- 
try, it is your whole interest as citizens, that is in ques- 
tion when you study history.” These words hold good 
when we deal with Egyptian history, and it should be 
the statesman’s business to learn the political lessons 
which the Egyptologist can teach him, as well as to 
listen to his dissertations upon scarabs and blue glaze. 
Like the astronomers of old, the Egyptologist studies, 
as it were, the stars, and reads the future in them; but 
it is not the fashion for kings to wait upon his pro- 
nouncements any more! Indeed, he reckons in such 
very long periods of time, and makes startling state- 
ments about events which probably will not occur for 


334 TUTANKHAMEN 


very many years to come, that the statesman, intent 
upon his task, has some reason to declare that the study 
of past ages does not assist him to deal with urgent 
affairs. Nevertheless, in all seriousness, the Kgyptolo- 
gist’s study is to be considered as but another aspect 
of statecraft, and he fails in his labours if he does not 
make this his point of view. 

In his arrogant manner the stay-at-home Egyptolo- 
gist will remark that modern politics are of too fleeting 
a nature to interest him. In answer, I would tell him 
that if he sits studying his papyri and his mummies 
without regard for the fact that he is dealing with a 
nation still alive, still contributing its strength to spin 
the wheel of the world around, then are his labours 
worthless and his brains misused. I would tell him that 
if his work is paid for, then he is a robber if he gives no 
return in information which will be of practical service 
to Egypt in some way or another. The Egyptian Gov- 
ernment spends enormous sums each year upon the 
preservation of the magnificent relics of bygone ages— 
relics for which, I regret to say, many Egyptians care 
very little. Is this money spent, then, to amuse the 
tourist in the land, or simply to fulfil obligations to 
ethical susceptibilities? No; there is another justifica- 
tion for this very necessary expenditure of public money 
—namely, that these relics are regarded, so to speak, 
as the school-books of the nation, which range over a 
series of subjects from pottery-making to politics, from 
stone-cutting to statecraft. The future of Egypt may 
be read upon the walls of her ancient temples and 
tombs. Let the Egyptologist never forget, in the 
interest and excitement of his discoveries, that his 
knowledge has a living application. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST 


R Y HEN Egypt first came under the care of 
Britain, in 1882, the country was in a state 
of most abject misery. The fields were 

largely untilled, the towns were falling into ruin, the 
cruelly taxed inhabitants were dying like flies, the 
native government was bankrupt and neither able nor 
willing to give any help, and on the Upper Nile, in the 
words of Sir Samuel Baker, “there was hardly a dog 
left to howl for a lost master.” 

When, therefore, the small company of British 
officers and civilians began the work of restoration, 
Egypt, as has been said in the last chapter, was re- 
garded by them simply as a sad little country wherein 
a clearly defined problem had to be worked out. The 
reorganisation of the Government, the re-establish- 
ment of the country’s credit, the revival of the half- 
dead people, were tasks which seemed to be the sole 
object of their mission; and in the urgency of the work 
of relief that lay to hand, there was little time for 
dreaming of the days when Egypt had been the centre 
of a mighty empire, or of the days when once again she 
should become a power in the world. The land of the 
Pharaohs thus presented itself to the British eyes as a 
little corner of Africa, aloof from the high affairs of 


the nations; a country which, at best, could be con- 
335 


336 TUTANKHAMEN 


verted into a small model state, a kind of side-show in 
the great exhibition of mankind’s activities. 

To-day, however, this aspect of the matter is obso- 
lete. Egypt is again a self-supporting and wealthy 
country, conscious of its great history, and stirred by 
enthusiastic hopes for the future. The inhabitants are 
prosperous and happy, the population is rapidly in- 
creasing, the Government is rich and progressive, trade 
flourishes, and the splendid old spirit of the people is 
fast reviving. Their energy and animation are coming 
back to them, the anemia and despair of many genera- 
tions are passing from them, and they are once more 
about to take their place as a nation which has to be 
reckoned with in the business of the world. Nowadays 
we must no longer think of Egypt as a limited tract of 
land in which a concise piece of work has to be accom- 
plished. We must think of her as a great kingdom 
which has passed through a serious illness and is now 
convalescent. We must not remember her as she was 
when England found her, emaciated and sick unto 
death; but we must try to recall the fine figure she cut 
in the past, when, with head erect, she towered above 
the surrounding nations and bent the knee to no man. 
For there is every reason to hope that she will once 
more resume something of her ancient glory. 

From the earliest times the geographical position 
of Egypt has given her a peculiar importance, and to- 
day that importance has been enormously increased. 
Tunis, Algiers, Morocco, are backed by the barren 
desert; but Egypt is the natural northern outlet of the 
trade of all Africa. Behind her lies the vast Sudan, 
which extends, with unbroken highways, into the lands 
about the equator; and behind these again is South 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST 337 


Africa. The old trade-routes are re-opening, and one 
day the Egyptian sea-coast will be in direct railway 
communication with the Cape. Alexander the Great 
founded the city of Alexandria to serve as the port 
from which the produce of Africa might be shipped to 
Europe; but extensive as was the commerce which 
ensued during the days of Greco-Roman control, the 
future trade along this route will be infinitely greater. 
Moreover, Egypt stands astride the highway from 
Europe to the East. 

Already in the fourteenth century before Christ, a: 
canal was cut across the Isthmus of Suez, linking the 
Nile and Mediterranean with the Red Sea, and opening 
up this road to the Orient; and, when this waterway 
fell into disuse, the Greeks and Romans established a 
great commercial route from the Nile valley across to 
the Red Sea coast, and thence over the sea to India. 
Julius Cesar at one time seems to have contemplated 
making Egypt the base of a great expedition to the 
East *; and in 1672, Leibnitz explained to Louis XIV 
of France that he might best hope to subjugate the 
Dutch, not by the invasion of Holland, but by an attack 
on Egypt, for, said he, “there you will find their great 
Indian commercial route.” 

In 1798, Napoleon led an expedition to Egypt, in 
order, as he wrote in his Memoirs, “to supply our com- 
merce with all the products of Africa, Arabia, and 
Syria, and to lead an army to the Indies.” A hundred 
years ago, travellers to India often took ship to Egypt, 
journeyed by caravan across the desert to the port of 
Suez, and thence sailed over the Indian Ocean; and 
since the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, Egypt 

* Weigall: Life and Times of Cleopatra. 


338 TUTANKHAMEN 


has become the all-important point on the route to the 
Orient. Again, the Nile valley has always been a 
meeting place of the continents, for her commercial 
connection with Syria can be traced back into prehis- 
toric times; and now that Cairo and Jerusalem are 
linked by railway, the importance of this connection is 
increased a hundredfold. In ancient times, Alexandria 
was thought to be one of the main points of rendezvous 
for all nations; and, owing to its geographical position, 
Julius Cesar seriously considered the advisability of 
making it the capital of the Roman Empire. 

But, apart from its situation, Egypt was in olden 
days notorious for its wealth. It was called “the gran- 
ary of the world”; and during the rule of the Cesars, 
vast quantities of corn were shipped to Italy. The gold 
mines in the Eastern Desert and in the Sudan were 
also very productive; and in the fifteenth century B.c. 
we read of foreign kings who wrote to the Pharaohs 
asking for supplies of the precious metal, for, they said, 
in Egypt gold is “as plentiful as dust.’ All manner of 
industries thrived in the country, and the inhabitants 
seem always to have been hard-working and thrifty, as 
indeed they are at the present day. It was due to this 
wealth, rather than to any other cause, that the Egyp- 
tians managed to obtain so great an ascendency over 
their neighbours; for they themselves have never been a 
warlike people, but they have been able to levy and pay 
for great armies from the Sudan, and many regiments 
of mercenaries. Indeed, Professor Erman, of Berlin, 
calls attention in true German manner to the “unfortu- 
nate” fact that the Egyptians “had no heroes of battle 
whom they could celebrate in song, their heroes being 
merely wise kings and princes; and they never experi- 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST — 339 


enced the invigorating influence of a great national 
war.” ‘They were ever a thoughtful, industrious, law- 
abiding people; and as such they are gradually coming 
back into the world’s ken, now that something of their 
old prosperity and wealth has been restored to them. 

In Pharaonic times, the Kgyptians were generally 
masters of Syria, and in the reign of Thutmose III 
(B.c. 1500) they ruled over all the country from the 
Euphrates to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile, as indeed 
they had done some centuries earlier under their alien 
Pharaoh Khyan. In the third century B.c., Ptolemy 
III could boast that he ruled over Egypt, Libya, Syria, 
Pheenicia, Cyprus, Lycia, Caria, Cilicia, Pamphylia, 
Ionia, the Hellespont, Thrace, Mesopotamia, Babylo- 
nia, Susiana, Persia and Media. In the Middle Ages 
the Caliphs of Egypt reigned over vast territories, 
sometimes extending from Tunis to Baghdad; and as 
late as 1839, Mohammed Ali, the founder of the present 
ruling house of Egypt, made himself master of Syria 
and the Levant. These conquests were usually effected 
by means of foreign aid; but the Egyptians, though 
not of martial breed, generally put up a good enough 
fight. Certainly at the battle of Nezib, in 1839, they 
gave the Turks a sound beating, and their excellent 
behaviour at Omdurman is within memory. 

The fact that Egypt has been regarded as a little 
country, and not as the centre of an empire, which his- 
tory shows us was her usual role in the past, has led us, 
perhaps, somewhat to under-value the possibilities of her 
future; and moreover, the country has so recently been 
released from the incubus of Turkish suzerainty, that 
we have not yet begun to think what heights she may 
attain to now that the burden is lifted. But if we recall 


340 TUTANKHAMEN 


to mind the extraordinary history of the Nile valley, 
and if we recollect that the Egyptians are, as is now 
definitely established, the same people to-day that they 
were in Pharaonic times, we shall realise that a great 
destiny may well await them. 

In the first place, we must remember that they have 
been civilised, and subject to law and order, for a 
greater length of time than any other nation, so far as is 
known. Nearly four thousand years before Christ their 
cities were flourishing, their commerce was extensive, 
their arts and crafts were highly developed; and already 
thirty centuries B.c. they were capable of building the 
great pyramids—monuments which to this day are un- 
rivalled in bulk and almost unrivalled in mathematical 
exactitude and clean workmanship. At that time their 
literature was already prolific; and we can read the 
biographies of the great men of those distant ages, 
study their mentality, be stirred by their poetry, and 
laugh at their jokes. Twenty centuries B.c., under the 
great Pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty, Egyptian civ- 
ilisation reached an amazing height, and we may still 
read, with a kind of awe, the moral discourses of the 
philosophers of the time, still appreciate the justice of 
the laws, and still be charmed by the works of the artists 
and craftsmen. 

In the famous Kighteenth Dynasty, which was 
founded B.c. 1580, we find a civilisation the equal, in its 
way, of that of Greece or Rome. Now we see the great 
Queen Hatshepsut building her superb temples and 
sending her ships to the ends of the known world; now 
it is Thutmose III who passes into view, marching to 
the banks of the Euphrates; now we fall under the spell 
of the luxury and exquisite art of the reign of Amenho- 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST 3841 


tep III; and now we watch with wonder the exalted 
and beautiful life of Akhnaton who has been called “the 
world’s first idealist.” Then, thirteen centuries B.c. 
comes Rameses the Great, in whose prosperous reign 
were built some of the huge temples which we so much 
admire. 

And so the wonderful story continues; and though 
the power of Egypt rose and fell, the people are seen 
to have been ever the same: hard-working, contented, 
capable, artistic and law-abiding. Three hundred years 
B.c., the Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies was estab- 
lished: and now Egypt became a very centre both of 
culture and of commerce, until the days of Cleopatra, 
when the wealth of Alexandria enticed the greatest 
men of Rome to the Egyptian shores. Under the 
Roman emperors the prosperity of the country con- 
tinued for some centuries, only declining when the 
power of Rome declined. 

In the Middle Ages, Cairo was for many years the 
seat of the Caliphs of Isliém, and the greatness of Egypt 
in these days rivalled that of the times of the Pharaohs. 
A picture of the magnificence of the Egyptian court 
has been left us by the ambassadors of Venice, who vis- 
ited Sultan Kansuh some four hundred years ago. 
They describe how, on reaching the entrance of the 
royal palace, they dismounted from their horses and 
ascended a splendid staircase of about fifty steps, at 
the top of which was the great portal, where three hun- 
dred chieftains, dressed in white, black, and green, were 
ranged, so silent and so respectful that they looked like 
monks. ‘They then passed through eleven other door- 
ways, between rows of eunuchs, all seated with a mar- 
vellous air of pride and dignity. When they reached 


342 TUTANKHAMEN 


the twelfth door, they were so tired that they had to sit 
down; but when they were rested, they passed on into 
a courtyard, which they judged to be six times the size 
of St. Mark’s Square. On either side were 6,000 men, 
and facing them was a silken tent with a raised plat- 
form, covered with a rich carpet, on which was seated 
the Sultan, dressed in gorgeous robes, a naked scimitar 
by his side. 

This description will give some idea of the glory of 
Egypt in medieval times; but suddenly the picture 
changes. In 1517, like a blight, the Turks descended 
upon the country, and Selim I, of Turkey, was declared 
Sultan of Egypt. At that time, Mutawakkil, a de- 
scendant of the Prophet’s uncle, resided at Cairo as 
Caliph of Islam; but Selim, though a foreigner and not 
of the sacred line, seized the Caliphate from him, and 
stripped Egypt of its religious dominion, taking the 
Prophet’s banner and other holy relics back with him to 
Constantinople, where to this day the Ottoman Sultans 
hold the supreme religious office, which Selim had 
usurped. Robbed and fleeced, Egypt soon deteriorated 
into a mere province of the Turkish Empire; and it was 
in miserable condition when Napoleon invaded the 
country. ‘The French army in Egypt surrendered to 
the British in 1801, who themselves evacuated the coun- 
try two years later. Shortly after this, Mohammed Ali, 
“the Lion of the Levant,” made himself ruler of Egypt, 
and in 1831 he declared war against the Turks, whom 
he and his son Ibrahim decisively defeated at Konia, in 
1833, and at Nezib, in 1839. It is an interesting fact 
that at the latter battle the Egyptian forces were led 
by French officers, while those of the Turks were led by 
Germans. 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST 343 


The grandson of Mohammed Ali was the famous 
Ismail Pasha, whose extravagance was so prodigal that 
in 1875 his personal debts amounted to £75,000,000. 
Under his rule the Egyptian peasants were mercilessly 
treated, and so high was the taxation imposed upon 
them that many once rich farmers preferred to wander 
about the country as beggars than till their fields; and 
when at last Ismail was deposed by the Sultan of Tur- 
key, against whom he had more than once prepared to 
go to war, Egypt was left in a state of penury and 
misery which no words can describe. During the reign 
of Ismail’s successor, Tewfik, an anti-foreign revolution 
was led by Arabi Pasha; and the various EKuropean 
powers left Great Britain to restore order in the coun- 
try. Arabi was defeated by Sir Garnet Wolseley at 
Tel-el-Kebir, in 1882, and a year later Lord Cromer, or 
Sir Evelyn Baring, as he then was, assumed control of 
Egyptian affairs, backed by a British army of occupa- 
tion, and assisted by a band of British officers and civil- 
ians, by whose energy and self-sacrifice the country was 
gradually restored to its prosperity. 

When we look back upon this long and proud his- 
tory, we cannot but be impressed by the spirit which 
has carried the Egyptians so nobly through the ages; 
and we must surely realise that a great future awaits 
them now that they have cast off the Turkish yoke. 
“Remember,” said the late Sultan of Egypt, “we have 
three great assets—the Nile, the Egyptian sun, and, 
above all, the peasants who till our fruitful soil. You 
will not find a race of men more accessible to progress, 
better tempered, or harder working.” ‘This is indeed 
the fact, and it is upon these foundations that the high 
hopes of the country’s future are mainly based; these, 


B44 TUTANKHAMEN 


and its geographical situation. In his first interview 
with the Governor of St. Helena, Napoleon said em- 
phatically, “Egypt is the most important country in the 
world”; and if these words had any truth a hundred 
years ago, when the fair land of the Pharaohs was 
ground down by the heel of the Turk, how much more 
are they true to-day, when the nation is prosperous, 
and the country is linked with Syria and the vast Sudan 
by railway, and, by reason of the Suez Canal, has 
become the very gate of the East! 

In Egypt itself there are all manner of industries, 
for which it was once famous, awaiting to be developed. 
For example, one may mention the making of wine. 
Atheneus states that the vine was cultivated in the Nile 
valley at a date earlier than that at which it was grown 
by any other people; and Strabo and other writers 
speak of the wines of Egypt as being particularly good, 
and various kinds emanating from different localities 
are mentioned. Strict Mohammedans, of course, would 
not participate in this industry, and there is some reason 
to think that Prohibition may be introduced by the new 
native Parliament; but a little wine maketh glad the 
heart, and the Copts and foreigners are sufficiently 
numerous to follow the Biblical hint without causing 
offence. Then, again, there are the gold mines in the 
Eastern Desert, which were once worked with energy, 
but have never been properly tackled in modern times. 
There is much reason to suppose that these Egyptian 
mines are the famous Ophir of King Solomon’s day, 
and throughout history they were extensively worked. 
And also in the Eastern Desert there are all manner of 
ornamental stones waiting to be quarried out of the hill- 
sides, as was done on so large a scale in ancient times. 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST = 345 


The beautiful Imperial Porphyry, so often used in 
Rome, is to be found only in this region; as also is the 
black and white speckled granite, known as Granito del 
Foro, which was so popular in the Eternal City. 
Breccia, serpentine, black basalt, diortte, and many 
other fine stones were here worked in Pharaonic and 
Roman times; and the alabaster quarries were used 
throughout the Middle Ages. As soon as the not diffi- 
cult problems of transport are solved by the making of 
roads or railways, this desert will once more be alive 
with quarrymen, as it was in early days. Again, the 
Egyptians were always famous in the past for their arts 
and crafts, and to this day almost any peasant can turn 
his hand to this kind of work. The manufacture of pot- 
tery and ornamental tiles only awaits revival, and now 
that the new railways have opened the markets, much 
may be expected from these industries. Agricultur- 
ally, too, Egypt is capable of enormous developments. 
The cotton crops will soon be greatly increased, the fine 
Egyptian dates will be grown more abundantly, and 
there should be large surplus stocks of grain to be sent 
oversea. In all directions the commerce of the country 
should now advance triumphantly, until, as the late 
Sultan predicted, “Egypt will become a centre of 
intensive cultivation.” 

It may be asked in what way the dismissal of the 
Turk will benefit the country. In the first place, Egypt 
is no longer obliged to pay a large yearly tribute to the 
Porte, and therefore it will have more money in hand 
for the development of its resources. Then again, as a 
Turkish province, it was not really allowed to establish 
diplomatic or commercial agencies in foreign countries, 
for, as Lord Cromer emphatically stated, ‘““There could 


346 TUTANKHAMEN 


be no such thing as an Egyptian state or an Egyptian 
nationality separate from Turkey.” Moreover, the 
Capitulations—that is to say, the rights granted by the 
Porte to foreigners in regard to Egypt—were a con- 
stant check upon the development of the nation; for 
practically no progressive measure could be undertaken 
without the individual consent of almost every country 
in Europe. It must always be remembered that, until 
the Protectorate was established, Egypt was, in spite 
of British control, an integral part of the Turkish Em- 
pire. The ruling house reigned by permission of the 
Ottoman Sultan; taxes were collected in the Sultan’s 
name; the Turkish flag was flown; the coinage bore the 
Sultan’s signature; and no treaties with foreign powers 
were allowed to be made except through the Porte. 
And, most serious of all, the devastating and deadly 
influence of the Turkish administration was always felt 
in many a subtle way, poisoning the mind and taking 
the heart out of the worker. Good man though he was, 
the Turk was not a good master, and his rule was the 
menacing black cloud that ever darkened the Kgyptian 
sky; and no matter in what direction one moved, there 
hung the forbidding shadow of lethargic inaction and 
opposition to progress. 

Now, however, Egypt, itself active and virile, is 
under the influence of an energetic race, and the skies 
are clear. But not only is the menace gone from the 
Nile; it has also been swept from the neighbouring 
countries; and this, in view of Egypt’s geographical 
position, is of equal importance. Some years ago the 
Turk was turned out of Tripoli, and that country, now 
being friendly, may one day be linked by railway with 
the Egyptian Delta. Syria, Palestine, and Mesopota- 


THE GATEWAY OF THE EAST 347 


mia are now free to develop their trade with Egypt; 
and Arabia is at last in touch with the Nile valley. 
Thus, on all sides, Egypt is faced by friendly coun- 
tries, in most of which the spirit of progress is evident; 
and already it is hard to recall the picture of the land 
as she was when Great Britain found her, bankrupt and 
starving, and surrounded by hostile and impoverished 
peoples, a pathetic little tract of territory, eloquent in 
its misery of Turkish misrule. But it is every year 
becoming more easy to remember her as she was in the 
past, before the Turks had created their ill-omened 
Empire, for the same spirit now animates the resusci- 
tated people, as when Rameses sat upon the throne of 
the Pharaohs or the Sultan Kansuh received the ambas- 
sadors of Venice. And truly one may paint a prophetic 
picture of the Egypt of the future in colours which 
shall surpass in brilliance those wherewith all her earlier 
scenes were painted; for never before has she so truly 
been the Portal of Africa and the Gateway of the East. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 
[L) eo the late war we constantly heard it said 


that Civilisation itself hung in the balance, and 

the spokesmen of our cause often employed the 
word “Civilisation” to describe the condition of society 
which, they declared, we were endeavouring to main- 
tain against the barbarous attacks of our enemies. On 
the other hand, the German propagandists, with equal 
insistence, told their readers that the war was being 
waged between their own “Civilisation” and the unruly 
forces of a lower plane of intelligence. American 
writers frequently declared that their people had joined 
with ours on behalf of “Civilisation”; and at the same 
time the German accused them of allying themselves 
with those who would overthrow “Civilisation.” 

One became very tired of the word, and it was ap- 
parent that it required to be defined; for in actual fact, 
Civilisation was not endangered, and neither the one 
side nor the other was fighting for its maintenance. 
Civilisation was a basic condition common to all the 
belligerents; but we were fighting for the maintenance 
of certain ideals which are not an intrinsic part of Civ- 
ilisation at all. Civilisation is simply an organised con- 
dition of human society which constitutes the soil where- 
in the higher idealism or the lower materialism of man 
may be cultivated. It is the ground on which goodly 


crops or noxious weeds may be grown; and the allies in 
348 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 349 


the war were but endeavouring to protect the wheat 
from the tares. The ground itself, however, that is to 
say, Civilisation, was not menaced. Throughout the 
known history of the world civilisation in general has 
never been overthrown, for when its banner has been 
dropped by one nation, it has been picked up and borne 
aloft by another. Persia, for instance, rose to the height 
of its intellectual glory during the Dark Ages in Eu- 
rope; and Greek learning was maintained and ex- 
pounded in Arabic literature when Greece itself had 
collapsed. No catastrophe that history has ever re- 
corded has been sufficiently widespread to damage more 
than a corner of civilisation; and if all Europe or 
America were now to be reduced to chaos, some other 
civilisation would take up its burden. 

What, then, is the meaning of Civilisation? It has 
nothing to do with humane conditions, or the cessation 
of human suffering. Ancient Assyria was highly civ- 
ilised; and yet the Assyrians flayed their captured ene- 
mies alive, and empaled them, and so left them to die 
in torment by the thousand on the battlefield. Ancient 
Rome was a centre of civilisation; and yet the populace 
witnessed with excited interest the horrible excesses of 
the arena. The people of China of fifty years ago were 
highly civilised, as their arts and their philosophy tes- 
tify; and yet the most ghastly forms of torture were 
commonly practised amongst them. 

Civilisation has nothing to do with the democratic 
rights of the individual. Europe and America are civ- 
ilised, yet they make use of trained and disciplined 
hordes and masses in their armies or their trade unions, 
accomplishing the purposes of the few by the blind obe- 
dience of the many, and like the Zulu chieftains and 


350 TUTANKHAMEN 


their impis, attempting to attain their objects by mere 
force of numbers. 

Civilisation has nothing to do with honour or integ- 
rity; for bribery and corruption have been rife in the 
most civilised communities. It has nothing to do with 
sexual decency. Immorality and vice apparently have 
thrived best in the atmosphere of civilisation. It has 
nothing to do with freedom of opinion or mutual toler- 
ance. The Pilgrim Fathers shook off from their shoes 
the dust of a civilised country. It has nothing to do 
with the development of spirituality or tenderness. 
The highly civilised men of Palestine crucified Him, 
who said, “Suffer little children to come unto Me.” 

An antiquarian who excavates the ancient cities of 
Africa or Mexico tells you that he has discovered the 
relics of a forgotten civilisation. He means that he has 
found traces of fine architecture, advanced sculpture or 
painting, written documents or monumental records, 
and other indications of an organised and intelligent 
state of society. He will have found, perhaps, a code 
of laws, a number of pots and pans, and some signs of 
a central government. Nothing more than this has 
come to light; and yet he is perfectly justified in speak- 
ing of this newly-discovered phase of man’s activities as 
a civilisation. He means simply a prosperous com- 
munal condition, in which arts and crafts flourished, 
some code of laws was obeyed, and some sort of justice 
administered. That is Civilisation. 

When we speak of modern civilisation, we add some- 
what to this definition. We mean a far more compli- 
cated code of laws, a far stricter administration of jus- 
tice. We mean the wearing of trousers and collars and 
hats; the use of railway trains, electric light and tele- 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 351 


phones; refined feeding; good systems of drainage; 
medical and surgical skill; fine broad streets and open 
parks; theatres; and so forth. The war endangered 
none of these things. Civilisation did not hang in the 
balance. 

We were fighting for a condition of human men- 
tality far transcending mere Civilisation, or mere cul- 
ture. Our object was to preserve not merely the 
Tables of the Commandments, but an unwritten law; 
not merely the vista of fair streets and fine buildings, 
but an indefinable point of view; not merely telephones 
and electric light, but an inner voice and an inner 
illumination which cannot be clearly formulated in 
words. We were fighting for what may be termed the 
heart of the world, and Civilisation is not to be con- 
founded with that heart any more than the coat is with 
the man. Nor is that heart to be confused with Culture, 
or Kultur, as the Germans term it. 

Primarily, Kultur is the condition of mental and 
emotional training in which the Arts are appreciated, 
but the Arts have not necessarily anything to do with 
that aspect of human affairs on behalf of which we were 
fighting. A man can be an artist and a brute at the 
same time. High art and low moral conditions have 
often gone hand in hand. Kultur is also a condition of 
intellectuality and brain-cultivation, wherein philoso- 
phy, metaphysics, and natural sciences, are studied and 
analysed. But the ranks of the world’s criminals have 
contained many a man of great intellectual attainments, 
and intellect has never been, nor ever will be, the pass- 
port of the Millennium. 

One often hears the question asked how it is that the 
Germans could have behaved in warfare with such un- 


352 TUTANKHAMEN 


governed ferocity and cruelty, when their country had 
always been regarded as the home of quiet learning, 
music, the modern schools of painting, and all the arts, 
crafts, and sciences of Civilisation. The answer is 
simple: Civilisation is not a state which precludes a low 
moral attitude. Intellectuality, culture or refinement 
of artistic tastes, are conditions which are quite distinct 
from high-mindedness. The Germans are probably the 
most highly-civilised people in the world; and yet, at 
the same time, their methods of warfare sickened man- 
kind. Their submarines, their liquid-fire, their gas, 
were the products of Civilisation—not of barbarism. 

We were not fighting for the preservation of Civ- 
ilisation any more than for the preservation of scientific 
inventions. We were fighting for a moral ideal, for 
high principles, for the tender things of life which are 
derived from our own application of the benefits of 
Civilisation. Civilisation itself does not bring with it 
that universal peace and goodwill for which we all hope. 
We have to formulate all manner of qualities which do 
not intrinsically belong to Civilisation, before we can 
define the ideal condition of society which we would like 
to see established; and to say, as we then did, that we 
were struggling simply for “Civilisation,” was to lower 
our standpoint to that of the Germans. Civilised insti- 
tutions are desirable, and indeed essential, but they are 
not in any way demonstrative of the finality of our 
ideals. ‘They constitute no more than the foundations 
of the great edifice which we would build. The prac- 
_ tice of arts, crafts, and sciences, the utilisation of intel- 
lect and organised effort, the cultivation and control of 
the emotions, the administration of the law, were con- 
ditions as dear to the Germans as to ourselves. 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 853 


It was absurd to say that the German method of 
submarine warfare, for example, was uncivilised. Civ- 
ilisation is not distinguished by a tender regard for 
individual existence. ‘The more coldly intellectual we 
are, the more we accept death merely as the polite solu- 
tion of the quandary of life; and this wonderful steel 
vehicle which is propelled by complicated machinery 
underneath the waves of the sea, and which deals death 
by the highly-skilled employment of a marvellous in- 
vention, is the quintessence of Civilisation. Submarine 
warfare, as practised by the Germans, was hideous to 
us, and altogether reprehensible, not because it was 
uncivilised, but because it was a cold, calculated applica- 
tion of the forces of Civilisation, which offended in us a 
sensibility that had a far deeper origin. To us this kind 
of warfare was not in accord with the dictates of human- 
ity, but the whole range of history shows that the 
dictates of humanity are not an essential part of 
Civilisation. 

The explanation of this seeming paradox is simple; 
but to understand it we must divest our minds of a 
certain habit of thought in which we have grown up. 

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when ape-like 
man began to assert his superiority over the other 
creatures of the earth, his mastery of the animal world 
was secured by means of his intellect. He began to 
think consecutive thoughts, capable of being turned into 
actions; he outwitted the other creatures; and every 
desire or habit or instinct which could be resolved into 
a concrete thought was rapidly turned by him to utili- 
tarian account in the bitter struggle for existence which 
was then proceeding. 

As the centuries rolled on and man became lord of 


354 TUTANKHAMEN 


the earth, this power of definite communicable thought 
led him to formulate rules of conduct, and to order his 
life in accordance with a concise principle of self-pres- 
ervation. And at length, during the last ten or twenty 
thousand years, when human society began to organise 
itself into groups of intelligent entities, whose internal 
warfare was largely curtailed, the power of concrete 
thought, the power of intellect, came to be the criterion 
of a man’s value. In his own domestic human affairs, 
as in his struggle with the animals, brute strength either 
gave ground before, or was used by, the power of intel- 
lect; and a man’s usefulness as a unit in society was 
reckoned either by his own intellect, or his willingness 
to obey the behests of some other person’s. 

But the mind of man contains many more sensibili- 
ties, dormant or active, than can be concentrated into 
definite thought. He has still a thousand mental feel- 
ings which he shares in common with the animals, and 
which have persistently failed to be expressed in those 
brain-motions by which his ascendency over the animal 
kingdom has been secured; and he has an untold quan- 
tity of undefinable intuitions which remain quite sep- 
arate from those thoughts capable of being formulated 
or expressed. Man, in fact, is a creature having definite 
thoughts, which are able to be expressed by language 
and put into execution by action, and also having intui- 
tive feelings incapable of direct transmission into words 
or deeds, and only able to be expressed indirectly in the 
general lines of his conduct. 

These intuitions which he cannot collect into concise 
thought or clearly express, constitute a large portion of 
his mentality, and have the acutest bearing on his point 
of view and his individuality; but, being inexpressible, 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 355 


they have not contributed to the building up of that 
Civilisation which is the natural outcome of the develop- 
ment of his precise intellect. The civilisation of the 
human race is simply the outcome of the definite reason- 
ing abilities of mankind: it is a method of existence 
which has grown up by means of mental adroitness, and 
not by means of those undefined qualities which lie hid- 
den within him. Civilisation is the product of pure 
intellect; a development of the exercise of that cunning 
which first raised men above the level of the other ani- 
mals. It is nothing more exalted than that. 

I can differentiate best between definite thought 
upon which Civilisation is founded, and indefinite and 
intuitive feeling, by naming two or three instances of 
the manifestation of each. 

If we consider the subject of Justice, on the one 
hand we find that “An eye for an eye and a tooth for 
a tooth,” is a maxim which is purely an intellectual 
proposition, a method of conduct based solely on the 
reasoned need of the suppression of violence for the 
sake of the preservation of the race; but, on the other 
hand, we can at once see that an intrinsic sense of jus- 
tice, as, for example, when a person refuses to condemn 
a woman for a sexual irregularity which he would con- 
done in a man, is based, not on a concrete thought or a 
rule of Civilisation, but on an indefinite feeling of fair 
play. Again, to be kind to one’s friend is an intellectual 
consideration which can be attributed to a clear process 
of reasoning; but to wish to treat one’s enemy kindly is 
a desire that comes largely from an intuition which can- 
not be analysed or ascribed to any process of definite 
reasoning. Or again, the fear of God is an obvious 
result of intelligent reasoning, possibly of an erroneous 


356 TUTANKHAMEN 


character; but the love of God is derived not from a 
definite thought but from an unreasoned sense or state 
of mind. The three spiritual qualities so exalted by 
Christian doctrine, namely, Faith, Hope, and Charity, 
are all examples of this undefined condition of mind, 
and have no direct connection with concrete thought or 
definite reasoning. 

I think that the reader who has had an ordinary 
religious education will best comprehend my meaning 
if I divide man’s mental activities into two simple 
groups: those springing from the dictates of intellect, 
and those derived from the dictates of what is called 
the heart. 

Civilisation is the final outcome of the exercise of 
simple intellect; but in its development the other and 
intangible resources of the mind have not been tapped 
to any considerable degree. 

The ordinary civilised man is considered to be one 
who obeys the laws which have been formulated for the 
preservation of society, and whose method of life con- 
forms to a certain standard of refinement. Whatever 
sort of villain he may be at heart, he is a civilised 
creature if his outward conduct is regulated in accord- 
ancé with the common law. Add to this an apprecia- 
tion of the refinements of life; senses and emotions so 
trained and controlled that they respond to the stimu- 
lus of the Arts; a certain inquisitiveness of mind, which 
stretches out beyond religion to a study of metaphysics 
and natural sciences; and we have a cultured man, a 
devotee of Kultur. This is the ultimate elaboration of 
the brain of the ape-man; and Civilisation and Kultur, 
with all their wonders, all their excellence, and all their 
advantages, are in essence nothing more than the mani- 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 357 


festation of intellect, defined thought, and trained 
emotions, and are altogether distinct from that high- 
mindedness upon which the peace of the world is to be 
based. 

The civilisation of the material conditions amongst 
which we live is desirable; but the really important 
matter is the civilisation of our souls. What we are 
accustomed to call “Civilisation” is not a condition in 
which we have banished our primitive squabbles, our 
fighting instincts, our greed, based on self-preservation, 
our tantrums, and our instinctive love of smashing 
things; and we would do well to remember that, in spite 
of our civilised organisation, we are, by nature, very 
close to the cave-man. 

In our twentieth-century arrogance we are in the 
habit of regarding the savage ages of the human race 
as being entirely separated from us by the barriers of 
Time; and, thinking in years instead of in generations— 
if, indeed, we think at all—we forget how close we are 
in blood and breed and disposition to those wild men 
of long ago. 

Most western pedigrees show an average of about 
three generations to the century, but often there are no 
more than five generations to two hundred years. ‘Thus, 
in the direct line of descent, seven or eight persons will 
bring us back to the murderous days of Bloody Mary; 
that is to say, all our direct ancestors back to that time 
could be put into an ordinary automobile, or accommo- 
dated around the drawing-room fire on a sofa and three 
or four chairs. The great-grandfather of our great- 
grandfather’s great-grandfather was born, very likely, 
in the reign of Richard the Third of England; and it 
is not improbable that his great-grandfather fought in 


358 TUTANKHAMEN 


the wars of the Black Prince. About thirty-six indi- 
viduals in a single genealogical line—as many as would 
fill a street-car—would bridge the distance from the 
present day to the time when the Romans left Britain. 

In Oriental countries there are sometimes even 
fewer generations to the century on the male line; for 
the men often marry young wives in their old age. 
Thus there must be some modern Egyptians who are 
removed by no more than about a hundred individuals 
from the savage dawn of Egypt’s history, six thousand 
years ago; and a Jew’s forefathers, back to the days of 
Tutankhamen and the Exodus might number no more 
than fifty—a little company such as is often collected 
in a drawing-room on some festal occasion. 

We know that the earliest Egyptians differed in no 
physical respect from the men of that nation to-day. 
For example, the statue of the Pharaoh who built the 
Third Pyramid is an exact likeness of a modern Egyp- 
tian; and if six thousand years is, thus, not long enough 
to make any change whatever in type, can we suppose 
that we are much different from our own prehistoric 
ancestors whom we are accustomed to regard as some 
extinct species? If you have a long nose or a large 
mouth, you may be quite sure that your prehistoric, 
cave-dwelling ancestor had it too; and he probably had 
that hearty laugh, or that obstinate temper of yours, 
which you thought you inherited merely from your 
grandfather. 

Civilisation, as the war proved, has not altered our 
animal natures; and it never will alter them until we set 
about the civilisation of our souls as well as that of our 
bodies. Civilisation, I repeat, is simply an organised 
social state, based on the law of race-preservation; and, 


THE MEANING OF CIVILISATION 359 


as we know it to-day, it shows no great ethical advance 
on the civilisation of the ancient world. 

Such thoughts as these came very forcibly into my 
mind during the work which was being conducted at 
the tomb of Tutankhamen. The civilisation revealed 
by the Egyptian monuments of that period, and by the 
objects discovered in the royal sepulchre, was of a very 
high order; and I asked myself whether we who live 
nearly thirty-three centuries later have improved upon 
it in any but superficial matters. Are we at heart more 
refined, more spiritualised? I think not. The passage 
of the years has left civilised men more or less as they 
were. Their intellect has increased, their knowledge 
has widened, their inventions have become more ingen- 
ious; but their hearts show little improvement, because 
Civilisation itself is based on the hard, concrete thoughts 
of the brain, and not on our intangible sensibilities. 

Let us give Civilisation its true value: do not let us 
make of it a sort of fetish. It does not imply the acting 
upon the dictates of humanity; it does not mean that its 
exponents are men of a tolerant habit of mind, sympa- 
thetic, generous, merciful, just, high-principled, spir- 
itual, idealistic, or freedom-loving. All these qualities 
in their higher manifestations are derived from an inner 
consciousness, disconnected with the gymnastics of in- 
tellect and emotion. They are seated, so to speak, at, 
the back of the mind; and they can be developed only 
by a certain method of education and mental environ- 
ment. In Germany, the young are trained in the use 
of their intellect: formulated knowledge is pumped into 
their brains, in the belief that that alone counts. In 
England and America we pay far less attention to 
learning; we strive to inculcate our children with the 


360 TUTANKHAMEN 


principles of freedom, fair-play, individual volition, and 
such-like qualities. It is true that we do this blindly, 
and without much conscious method; nevertheless, our 
education, in its blundering way, gives considerable 
opportunity for the development of the higher sensibili- 
ties, whereas the German system gives very little. 
Until it dawns upon us all that mere intellectuality, 
mere culture, mere Civilisation, is not the end but the 
beginning of human development, not the harvest, but 
the soil, there will be no great forward progress of man- 
kind. But when at length we realise that what may be 
termed the soul of man is the thing that counts, then, 
and not till then, shall we suddenly leap forward, so 
that the days of Tutankhamen, and the more remote 
but still proximate age of the cave-man will be left far 
behind, and the salvation of the world will be in sight. 


INDEX 





Abbott Papyrus. 
NINOS .k. os 


Ahmose-Nefertari . 
(Akinaton vies: s+, 


mieAnvam j.'s 
Allenby, Lord . . 
Amenehet IT. 
HR 
Amenhotep I. 








Ties as 
BOR Ae 





Amenmeses é 
Amenophis II. . 
Tee vis 
Amherst, Lord. . 


Amon 





PTICTA Mars) 5 Fs a6 
Ankhsenpeaton . 
Anubis, God . . 
MOC RIE Es Wiese ek 6 
Aton oy UA Sele 
Ausserra Apepi . 
DY eRING ie ws 
Cavan Te ce ae 


Baker, Sir Samuel . 
Barsanti, M. . 
Bellefonds Bey 
Breasted, James H. 
Burton, Mr. 


INDEX 


363 


45, 121 

40, 42-43, 47, 68, 
113, 323 

44 

32, 56, 57, 68, 99, 
109, 113 

rat 

97 

39 

40 

12, 43, 45, 47, 68, 
323 

53, 64, 68, 323 

55, 68, 100, 105, 
107, 112, 287, 
323 

62 

68 

68, 107, 109 

121 

100, 128, 290 

47 

104, 117 

89, 94 

297, 307 

100, 104 

44, 64 

58, 69, 106, 118 

104 


335 
299 
193 
158, 169 
85 


364 TUTANKHAMEN 


C 


Calendar, Egyptian 
Calender, Mr. . 

Camels FAS 
Camavyon, 0rd 9). a) eee 


Carter, Howard 
Cheops 

Chronology, Hey pean 
Civilization, Meaning of 
Clarke, Site 
Cleopatra . 

“Colossi, The” 

Cromer, Lord 

Currelly, (Crs I. 


Dakhamun . . 
Davis, Theodore M. 
Dedefra 

Der el-Bahri 

Der el-Medineh 


Ebers Papyrus 

Egyptian Empire . . 
Elizabeth, Queen of the Belgians 
Engelbach, R. : 

Erman, Professor . 


Exodus, Book of 


F 
Kirti Coie. 
Flooding of Lower Nubia 

G 
Genesis, Book of 
Gold-mining 
Golenischeft 

H 


Hathor. Goddess nie, meee ete 
Hatshepsut, Queen) =... 


188 

22, 24, 25-31, 34, 
71, 136, 329 

23, 44, 68, 71, 92 


ahs b 


299 
296-310 


113 
182 
173, 191, 285 


49, 229 
19, 49-51, 68 


Pierath. .* <. “s+ \ie. (> 
TIOTEIDED beeteodiiey «deo! st, ss 


INV OE Piste se Bre te) a) ve Ls 


RIB ECUCEIEY es 4 64 8. re 


MOSCOUUSEL COED e es 6 6 +, oe 
aris oy) rn 


Kahun Papyrus .. . + + -; 
Khafra 5 Js ge ee eee ee 
PODAWASCER SHS <) Cee 3h 8 
Khufu +. oho ees 
Knobel, E. B. 4 eS Ty Be 


Kossair MCE ch ot [otter as 


Leibnitz eae tiie 
Lepsius a ee 8 
mpOretea Ms tick) aos 
Eucas, Mr. .. - 


NEACE AM Potce’ otis 

MAGICME, Se Evans: 2. 5 de we ye Fe 
MeninetsHabur es so us 
Mena. 

Menkaura (Mykerinos) 

Merenptah - 

Meyer Papyrus 

Mommsen 

Moses ; LDR ines eee 
Mummy, malevolent, in the British Museum 
Murry, Douglas 


N 


Naville, Professor Te unr ae cae 
Nebhapetra Mentuhotep . . . =. .- 


44 

59, 69, 107, 
118, 323 

268 


124 


162 


865 


109, 


366 

Neferhotep 
Nefertiti . . 
Nuserra Mea 


Ogilvie, F. F. . 
Opniti tne a. 


Pasers ik.) vets 
Pauraa . 


Petrie, Bret eeece Flinders 


Philae 
Porphyry quarries 
Ptolemy III... 


Quarries. 


Quibell, J. E. . 


Rameses the Great 


Rameses I. 
II. 
III. 
LNs 








Reisner, Dr. 


Rhind Mathematical Papyrus 


Road Taxes 
Robbers of Thebes 


Sahura 


° 


Schiaparelli, Professor 


Schireinfurth 


TUTANKHAMEN 


98 
102, 118 
39 


155 
183 


121-127, 131-132 
121-127, 132-133 
31, 34, 39, 158, 162 
297, 303 

237-255 

206, 276, 325 


182, 191-210, 237- 
255, 256-274 
19, 68 


111, 275 

60, 110 

61, 291, 324 
63, 324 

63, 68 


63, 68 


215 
119-125 


39, 322 
92, 132 
173 


Seasons : AUSSI gr uD Cet 
Seely, Sir John A oN Se te 


ecert: LL ct} 





Ith ches 
POO LOU tsccmenwat.) se 
Setnakht Bas 
wig IS: 08) 8 ea 

iW e 





Smenkh Kara ... SEAS fF 
Smith, Professor Elliot 

‘Smith, Joseph Lindon 

Sneferu 


Spirits, malevolence of ancient Egyptian 


Syria 


SUMMEEPTOUCESS 4 > 6 se e's 
Tausert, Queen 

Taxes uM ter re ehic tela k ees ag 
Poe eAriarna, elie) st ks 


fimepes; ropbers’Of 9.5. os 
RISERS yee Yeni ee) Sa 











II. ‘ 
III. 
EV 
Times 
Tiy, Queen aA ee “ 
Tuair 


Turin Papyrus, ‘ 
Turkey and Egypt . 
PRCILATIC MAINED 5 Pies eo fis. elo! Hyer) |e 


Tutu ° e e e e e ° ° e 


Unas ° e ° ° ° e ° . ° 


V 


Valley of the Queens. : 
Valley of the Tombs of the Kings : 


367 


159 

311, 333 
39 

39, 42, 47, 322 
62 

63 

61, 78, 275 
62 

57, 69, 103 
312 

152 

39 

136-157 
321-326 


78 

62 

Q15 

18, 31, 56, 93, 101, 
102, 107 

119-135 

46, 68 

48-50 

19, 45, 51-53, 323 

19, 54, 55, 68, 323 

125-131 

19, 20, 32, 56-58, 
65, 69 

20, 55, 68 

121, 163 

327 

58-59, 61, 64, 68, 
69-98, 99, 103, 
115, 287 

103 


39, 55 


61, 153 
19, 38-70 


368 TUTANKHAMEN 


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Wady Abad, Temple of ©2027." 2.) 3) 2) 275-295 
Wadytllaliawa. @: . ai) ey eee 0. SOU 
Wady Hammamat, Geaerics of et eee Ose LO 
Wells; John \.. a s.en, 1 ete a ee | Osos 
Y 
Yuasa’. cet ey ear at | oe OS beGS 
Z 


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